Health Spending Accountability and Transparency Program

The Health Spending Accountability and Transparency Program came into being as of July 1, 2022. It has three key goals that are designed to curb health care spending growth:

• Goal 1: Understand and create transparency around health care costs and the drivers of cost growth
• Goal 2: Create shared accountability for health care costs and cost growth among insurers, providers, and government by measuring performance against a cost growth target tied to economic indicators
• Goal 3: Lessen the negative impact of rising health care costs on Rhode Island residents, businesses, and government

The program seeks to achieve these goals by collecting and analyzing health care spending data and utilizing that data to create meaningful actions to slow spending growth. These actions include publication of insurer and provider performance on cost growth relative to a predetermined health care cost growth target. Additionally, annual public meetings will be held on performance relative to the target and actions that are developed in collaboration with health care entities to slow spending growth while improving health care access and quality.

This program builds on the important work of the Rhode Island Health Care Cost Trends Steering Committee which developed and, on December 19, 2018, executed the Compact to Reduce Growth in Health Care Costs and State Health Care Spending in Rhode Island. It represented and continues to represent a voluntary commitment by health care stakeholders to take all reasonable and necessary steps to annually keep cost growth below the target at the organizational level and state level while maintaining (or improving) quality and access. More recently, the Compact to Accelerate Advanced Value-Based Payment Model Adoption in Rhode Island was also developed and, on April 13, 2022, signed in order to issue a set of recommendations for accelerating the adoption of advanced value-based payment models in Rhode Island in order to help to reduce the growth rate of health care spending and support attainment of the state’s target.