The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission voted Wednesday to lower the state's medical spending growth target to 3.1 percent in 2018, according to The Boston Globe.
The 11-member Health Policy Commission, which was created in 2012 with the goal of helping keep healthcare spending under control in Massachusetts, voted unanimously to lower the spending growth threshold even though the state failed to meet the higher target of 3.6 percent in 2014 and 2015. Massachusetts has not yet released spending figures for last year, according to the report.
Although the lower spending target is ambitious, Massachusetts hospitals support the new benchmark. "It's aspirational, but we have to try," Lynn Nicholas, president of the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association, told the Boston Globe.
More articles on healthcare finance:
5 states with the most rural hospital closures
Financial updates from Cleveland Clinic, BJC HealthCare & 3 other systems
Banner's plan to save $65M includes voluntary employee termination program