Massachusetts Lawmakers, Officials Discuss Overhauling Payments To Physicians, Hospitals To Control Health Care Costs

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 17 Mar 2008 - 9:00 PDT

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Massachusetts needs to overhaul its payment system for physicians and hospitals as part of efforts to control rising health care costs in the state, two former chairs of the state Legislature's health care committee said at a legislative hearing on Wednesday, the Boston Globe reports. State lawmakers at a hearing of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing discussed legislation introduced last week by state Senate President Therese Murray (D) (Dembner, Boston Globe, 3/13).

The proposed bill includes a measure to ban all gifts to physicians from pharmaceutical companies. It also includes provisions that would require all state physicians to adopt electronic health records by 2015, allow patients to choose nurse practitioners as primary care providers and require public reviews of insurance company efforts to increase annual premiums by more than 7% (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 3/4).

However, former chairs of the Legislature's health care committee state Sen. Mark Montigny (D) and John McDonough, executive director of Health Care for All, said the legislation does not go far enough. Montigny said, "The big bogeyman ... is payment system reform," adding that the state needs to address "the cozy relationship" between the state's largest hospital system, Partners HealthCare, and its largest insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts. McDonough said hospitals and other large care providers have raised the costs of health care through private deals with insurance companies. McDonough said the state should gain federal approval to implement a system that pays care providers based on the types of services provided.

John Kingsdale, executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector, said the state should require all insurers to explain premium increases, not just those that are more than 7% -- a proposal supported by the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans (Boston Globe, 3/13).

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