Bill > H1384

This bill updates Massachusetts' health care cost growth benchmark and market oversight activities by introducing several key changes. It establishes a new "benchmark cycle" concept, which is a three-year period for calculating and monitoring health care expenditure growth, and creates a new 16-member technical advisory committee to help set the health care cost growth benchmark. The benchmark will be based on the state's potential gross state product growth rate, plus an adjustment factor recommended by the technical advisory committee that considers factors like medical inflation, labor costs, new medical technologies, and historical economic growth. The bill empowers the Health Policy Commission to require health care entities that exceed the benchmark to file performance improvement plans, with potential penalties for non-compliance, including civil penalties up to $1 million for repeated violations. The technical advisory committee will include representatives from various healthcare sectors and will be responsible for recommending the adjustment factor, providing technical advice, and producing annual reports. The bill also modifies reporting requirements, allowing for more comprehensive analysis of health care spending trends over the three-year benchmark cycle and providing a mechanism for the commission to address entities that consistently exceed cost growth targets.

Health and Social Services

https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H1384