The unique system that sets the rates patients pay at all Maryland hospitals will remain in place for the moment, even as cost cutters in the Trump administration axe other special systems around the country.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced this week that it would end a half-dozen special models, including the one in Maryland. But the program already was slated to end this year. A new version of the model is scheduled to go into effect in January.

And while the contract for that new version in Maryland had been signed off by federal officials, it’s unclear if the federal regulators under President Donald Trump will seek to alter the terms.

The systems are considered experiments aimed at controlling costs and improving care by the federal regulators who oversee them.

Though many Marylanders may be unaware of the system here, it is broad in its scope, regulating rates for everything from surgeries to childbirth while capping overall revenue from patients at the hospitals.

Changes could still be coming from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS. Local officials say they will work with the federal regulators to preserve what they call a “successful” system.

“We look forward to working with CMS to continue our work to lower costs, improve quality, support rural health, enhance consumer choice, and emphasize prevention,” said Jonathan Kromm, executive director of the state’s Health Services Cost Review Commission.

The federal agency has a say because it pays the bills for patients enrolled in federally funded Medicare and Medicaid, which are health programs for seniors and low-income residents, respectively. It has been paying extra to Maryland in exchange for a pledge to keep the state’s overall spending on hospital care below the national average.

The hospitals do this by steering patients to primary and outpatient care that is less costly than services in their emergency rooms or beds.

The federal agency said in its announcement that it had found programs that failed to meet “statutory goals of reducing program spending while maintaining or improving quality of care.”

The agency’s Innovation Center said savings from ending all the programs on its list would total almost $750 million.

At the same time, it said Maryland had saved Medicare close to $1 billion. Maryland data shows the total is closer to $1.6 billion since 2014.

Some hospital executives have complained recently that the system is strained, as the population ages and requires more complex care and treatments become more costly. They say hospitals have become incentivized to just keep people out of their facilities and that has burdened the ones that accept all those seeking care.

None of the hospital officials say they want to drop the system. That’s because they credited it with providing predictable revenue that protects them from economic turbulence and could help if there are federal cuts to Medicaid or other programs in the future.