As the Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA) continues its efforts to curb growth in health care spending following its setting of a 3.5% growth target in April (ramping down to 3% in 2029), CHA has released a series of brief presentations to help hospital leaders understand both the process and potential implications of OHCA decisions.
The on-demand series covers:
- An overview of the office and its background
- How the office will collect and report data
- Details of the spending target process and considerations
- Cost and market impact review regulations
- New standards for alternative payment model adoption, workforce stability, quality and equity measures, and primary care and behavioral health investment
Understanding the work of the office and how its decisions might affect your organization’s ability to deliver quality care is critical to protecting the services that your patients and communities rely on. In the coming months and years, the office will ramp up measurement and enforcement activities, and the expectations on hospitals and health systems will grow.
CHA continues to advocate for the entire field, most recently submitting two letters to the OHCA board: one requesting changes to the proposed revisions to the cost and market impact review regulations and one offering new data to inform the board’s work moving forward. Underpinning all of this is the simple fact that if the work of the office does not address underlying drivers of spending, account for the growing needs of California’s aging population, or distinguish between “good” and “bad” health care spending, it will be patients who suffer.
A CHA workgroup of hospital and system members continues to convene to ensure a broad field voice is represented when input is provided to OHCA, and to reinforce for the board and staff that the goal of reduced growth in health care spending must never come at the expense of access to patient care.
