Relative Price and Provider Price Variation

CHIA reports annually on relative price to examine provider price variation in Massachusetts. Relative Price (RP) facilitates comparison of average provider prices while accounting for differences in patient acuity, the types of services providers deliver to patients, and the different insurance product types (e.g., HMO, PPO) that payers offer to their members.

For acute hospitals, CHIA calculates both payer-specific RP, which enables comparison of provider prices within a payer’s network, and cross-payer statewide relative price (S-RP), which enables comparison of acute hospital prices across all commercial payers.

For other hospital types (chronic care, rehabilitation, and behavioral health hospitals (including private psychiatric hospitals, substance use disorder facilities and dedicated behavioral health units within acute hospitals)) CHIA calculates payer-specific RP, enabling comparison within a payer’s network of hospitals that provide similar services. Payer-specific RP is also calculated for physician organizations.

In July 2024, CHIA released Relative Price results with data through CY 2022 for Massachusetts hospitals and physician groups. CHIA also produced an interactive Tableau dashboard allowing users to explore this data in more detail.   

CY2022 Massachusetts Relative Price Data

Updated 7/31/2024

Please Note:

• Please note: In this interactive dashboard, data does not exist for all combinations of filter selections. In cases where no data exists, an intentionally blank page will appear. Due to data quality concerns, HNE and MGBHP were excluded from physician group data analysis. Hospital cohorts include academic medical centers, community hospitals, community-high public payer hospitals, teaching hospitals, and specialty acute hospitals. S-RP results for specialty acute hospitals are not shown; these hospitals are not comparable because of their unique patient populations and/or services. Please see the Relative Price methodology documentation for more detailed information.