The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission will give Mass General Brigham an extension on its performance improvement plan.
The HPC ordered the state’s largest health system to come up with a plan to reduce its costs, which exceeded the commission’s spending growth benchmark by $293 million from 2014 to 2019. Boston-based Mass General Brigham asked for a 60-day extension when the plan was due in mid-March.
The health system now must produce a plan by May 16, including a savings target and methodology, proposed interventions and a time line. The HPC will review the plan during its June 8 board meeting.
Mass General Brigham is taking the issue very seriously and the HPC expects the health system to submit a constructive set of recommendations, commissioners said during their board meeting Wednesday.
“We wanted to avoid the infinite loop of going around and around on things and not reach an agreement. This is not that,” commissioner David Cutler said. “This is not a situation where they come to us and say, ‘No, no, no’ and it goes around infinitely and we haven’t been reaching agreement but rather this is a situation of genuine discussion and trying to help craft something that would be in the best interest of the commonwealth.”
This is the first performance improvement plan issued by the commission, although the process has limited enforcement authority. The performance improvement process carries a maximum penalty of $500,000.
Meanwhile, Mass General Brigham has proposed inpatient expansions that are expected to increase healthcare costs.