Massachusetts Health Care Cost Growth Benchmark Factsheet: Annual Health Care Cost Trends Reports

To contain health care cost increases, Massachusetts enacted Chapter 224 in 2012, which established a first‐in‐the‐nation target, called a benchmark, for annual growth in total statewide health care spending. Among other things, the law created a Health Policy Commission and granted it authority to hold payers and providers accountable for keeping annual cost growth below the benchmark. To inform other states that have adopted similar cost growth benchmark initiatives, this series of factsheets describes the Health Policy Commission’s four accountability tools and how they have been used to date.

This factsheet is focused on the use of health care cost trend reports, which assess overall health care spending growth patterns in the state and analyze key drivers of cost growth. These reports also make recommendations regarding public policies and actions by private payers and providers that can help to restrain cost growth and improve the efficiency of the health care system.