PROVIDENCE — Gov. Gina M. Raimondo and the Office of Health Insurance Commissioner pledged to hold health care spending per capita increases for consumers, Medicare and Medicaid segments at 3.2 percent annually, from 2019 through 2022, the two announced at Brown University Wednesday.
The state will cooperate with 13 Rhode Island insurers, hospital systems, trade organizations and state agencies, the leaders of which have signed the Compact to Reduce the Growth in Health Care Costs and State Health Care Spending in Rhode Island. The signatory parties are Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, Coastal Medical, Lifespan Corp., Rhode Island Foundation, The Rhode Island Parent Information Network, Care New England Health System, Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island, Rhode Island Medical Society, Rhode Island Business Group on Health, Tufts Health Plan, the Office of Health Insurance Commissioner, The Wilson Organization LLC, BankNewport, Hospital Association of Rhode Island and UnitedHealth Group Inc.
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The effort is split into three parts, said Cory King, principal policy associate at OHIC. The first part began with Raimondo’s executive order signed today to pursue the per capita spending limit with the help of compact signatory members.
Second, he said, will involve Brown University performing a retrospective analysis of Rhode Island’s all payer claims database, a collection of Rhode Islanders’ health care insurance data including demographics, health status, medical services, emergency room, pharmacy and doctor visits, but no personally identifiable information. That analysis will stretch back to 2017 to the present to provide a baseline measurement. That baseline will be the basis for comparison of the compact members’ cost management strategies for this year and going forward, King said.
Brown’s analysis will probably be ready for comparison against the compact members’ efforts by the end of 2020, King said.
The third part of the effort will involve either the state or another entity keeping a running analysis of the state’s health care cost management, King said.
King said the approach has been successful in Delaware and Massachusetts, where the initiative is incorporated into state law rather than as an executive order. He said if the current approach doesn’t work, the state might pursue a law replacing the executive order with more enforcement options.
Massachusetts has done well with their health care cost cap, he said. “In recent years, they’ve met it or come in underneath it,” he said.
Rhode Island begins its health care cost management with a leg up over the Bay State, King noted. R.I. has a hospital price inflation cap, equal to the consumer price index plus one, coincidentally bringing it to 3.2 percent. That level of price control is something Massachusetts doesn’t have, he said.
“We probably have a better handle on costs than Massachusetts does,” King noted.
Rob Borkowski is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Borkowski@PBN.com.
