The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission’s 2015 report on cost trends makes recommendations for healthcare policies going forward for integrated care.
Here are five key notes on the study:
1. The state saw a 4.8 percent rise in aggregate costs, higher than the 3.6 percent benchmark.
2. The HPC recommends increasing alternative payment method use, such as bringing PPO enrollees under and addressing the perceived underlying provider price differences.
3. The report recommends identifying how the state can tackle drug costs, although federal action will make the strategy successful.
4. There are issues with out-of-network billing that could address costs in the future.
The recommendations also seek to promote behavioral health integration with long term care for payment and system reform initiatives.
5. The report recommends addressing site-of-service differential to establish equivalency. Price and quality transparency is also addressed through new action
6. Standardizing quality measures was another goal for the report.