Outside Section 11

Health Care Cost Transparency

SECTION 11. Section 10 of chapter 12C of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2014 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out subsection (e) and inserting in place thereof the following 2 subsections:-
(e) The center, in consultation with the executive office of health and human services, shall develop an appropriate approach to reporting health care price and related information by provider for consumers, employers and other interested parties. The center shall establish a list of the most common procedures and services based on data collected under this section and sections 8 and 9. The center shall require private and public health care payers to submit the payment rates for such procedures and services and other information necessary for the center to determine the weighted average rate per provider across the market, for every provider with which the payer has contracted or has a compensation arrangement. The center shall aggregate any data collected under this section and develop the weighted average payer rate for such procedures and services, by individual provider, and shall make such information publicly available. The center shall keep confidential all nonpublic data obtained under this section and shall not disclose any data to any person without the consent of the provider or payer that produced the data, except that the center may disclose such data in an aggregated format, as provided above. The center shall promulgate regulations necessary to implement the provisions of this section.

(f) Except as specifically provided otherwise by the center or under this chapter, insurer data collected by the center under this section shall not be a public record under clause Twenty-sixth of section 7 of chapter 4 or under chapter 66 .



Summary:
This section requires the Center for Health Information and Analysis to make available the weighted average payer rate, by provider, for the most common procedures and services using aggregated data reported by the health plans.