Payer Data Reporting: Primary and Behavioral Health Care Expenditures

Overview

There is emerging interest in the Commonwealth to better measure expenditures on primary care and behavioral health services, as reflected in recent legislative proposals from the Baker-Polito Administration, findings and recommendations from the Health Policy Commission and the Office of the Attorney General, as well as support from patient advocates. These spending categories comprise an array of vital services that can meaningfully shape patient outcomes and are often associated with lower costs and higher quality.

Consistent with CHIA’s mission to create and curate data assets that support evidence-based policymaking and program oversight, the agency is proposing to collect more detailed information about primary care and behavioral health spending in the Commonwealth. This proposed measurement approach is not intended to fulfill any specific initiative or proposal but will provide a foundational data set that can be leveraged and adapted to support future initiatives and policies related to primary care and behavioral health.

CHIA Submissions for 2022 Reporting

All Primary Care and Behavioral Health (PCBH) data will be submitted by using a pre-formatted Excel template. Reports are required to be submitted through https://chiasubmissions.chia.state.ma.us, CHIA’s web-based transaction service. For more information on this transaction service, please see CHIA Submissions and INET Questions and Answers. Please refer to the CHIA Submissions User Guide for information specific to PCBH reporting.

Questions

For questions specifically related to payer data reporting, please email erin.bonney@chiamass.gov.

Listening Session

On Wednesday, February 12, 2020, CHIA held a listening session to solicit public comments and feedback on proposed updates to CHIA’s data specifications to better measure primary care and behavioral health spending in the Commonwealth.

The listening session focused on the following topics related to the draft data specifications:

• Review proposed measurement approach;
• Solicit feedback from stakeholders about existing approaches to classifying provider and service types;
• Discuss timing considerations.

CHIA's presentation from the listening session is available here. A compilation of stakeholder comments and feedback from the listening session can be found here.