Publications

This legislatively-mandated report examines the prevalence and impact of health insurance payer policies that seek to reduce overall pharmaceutical spending by requiring alternative methods of distribution and payment for certain costly specialty drugs. The clinician-administered drugs subject to these policies, administered not by a retail pharmacy but by a clinician to a patient through injection or infusion in the outpatient setting, are typically high priced and represent a growing share of all pharmaceutical spending.

This twelfth issue of HPC DataPoints contains new data on PBM pricing for generic drugs in the Massachusetts Medicaid and commercial market.

This issue of DataPoints analyzes spending trends from 2013 to 2016 for commercially insured patients who have diabetes and use insulin to manage their condition.

In this annual report for 2018, the HPC presents new research to enhance the collective understanding of health care spending trends and cost drivers and evaluates progress in meeting the Commonwealth’s cost containment, care delivery, and payment system goals.

Poster presented at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in 2018, examining the price variation of chemotherapy drugs in Massachusetts

This brief is designed to increase understanding of the scope and scale of identified health care savings opportunities and provides a roadmap to reduce Massachusetts health care spending by $4.8 billion in five years.

In this annual report for 2017, the HPC presents new research to enhance the collective understanding of health care spending trends and cost drivers and evaluates progress in meeting the Commonwealth’s cost containment, care delivery, and payment system goals.

In the 2016 Cost Trends Report, the Health Policy Commission (HPC) reported on an increase in prescription drug claims with no cost sharing in the years following the ACA’s implementation across the three largest commercial payers in the Commonwealth. The HPC has now expanded this analysis to better understand the nature of these claims, including the extent to which they comprised claims for contraception services, which represent high-value care.

Poster presented at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in 2017, examining the impact of the preventive coverage mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on spending and utilization of contraception in Massachusetts

In this annual report for 2016, the HPC presents new research to enhance the collective understanding of health care spending trends and cost drivers and evaluates progress in meeting the Commonwealth’s cost containment, care delivery, and payment system goals.