Publications

Massachusetts established the first-in-the-nation health care cost growth benchmark in 2012 as an important tool to help mitigate the trend of rising health care costs. The state engages in an annual process to measure and monitor spending performance relative to this benchmark, including convening an annual hearing every March. This episode of HPC Shorts explains that process, examines total health care spending against the benchmark over time, and describes the significant impact the benchmark can have on the residents of the Commonwealth.

This issue of the HPC’s DataPoints series analyzes the ASC landscape in Massachusetts including the location and services provided by ASCs, utilization among commercial and MassHealth patients, and prices in ASCs compared to HOPDs, as well as the regulatory context that has shaped the ASC industry in the Commonwealth.

SHIFT-Care Challenge awardees were required to propose and conduct evaluations of their initiatives. Some awardees conducted their evaluations themselves while others subcontracted all or a portion of the evaluation work to external firms. The resulting evaluation materials, in combination with quarterly written program updates and quantitative data submitted by the awardees, were used as source material for production of this report.

An annual report released by the HPC documenting projects and activities undertaken during the HPC's 2023 Summer Fellowship Program.

This report provides an overview of the SHIFT-Care Challenge Investment Program, which supported innovations to address health-related social needs and increase access to timely behavioral health services, with the goal of decreasing the use of costly and avoidable hospital care in Massachusetts.

This issue explores where commercially-insured residents in Massachusetts received flu vaccines between 2017 and 2021, and aims to increase understanding of differences in access and spending related to cost of flu vaccines among commercially-insured residents across the Commonwealth.

Heath care spending per person in the US is almost double what it is in other high-income countries. It’s not that we use more health care in the United States – it’s that we pay more for it. This episode of HPC Shorts looks into how US health care pricing works, and how this system results in excessive spending in Massachusetts.

In this annual report for 2023, 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.

Special policy report on the consolidation and closures across the Massachusetts pediatric health care market, and the implications that this has on the market and broadly on cost, quality, access, and equity.

Profiles of the Birth Equity and Support Through the Inclusion of Doula Expertise (BESIDE) Investment Program awardees, Baystate Medical Center and Boston Medical Center