What’s happening: Mark Ghaly, MD, MPH, has resigned as secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS). His seat on the OHCA board will transition to the newly appointed secretary, Kim Johnson, or her designee.
What else to know: Since April, the Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA) has been convening a workgroup to obtain stakeholder input on how hospital spending growth will be measured against the spending target.
At the end of September, Dr. Ghaly will resign as CalHHS Secretary. Kim Johnson, director of the California Department of Social Services, will take his place as secretary and fill his seat on the OHCA board (unless a designee is chosen). Dr. Ghaly’s resignation will mean that the OHCA board will have a new chair, with a vote expected as early as the Oct. 14 board meeting. (September’s previously planned board meeting was moved to October.)
For the last six months, OHCA has convened a monthly workgroup of hospital, health plan, purchaser, and consumer advocate representatives to advise on the development of a methodology for measuring hospital spending growth against the spending target. This month, OHCA announced that the work would pause through the end of the year and restart in 2025.
Significant progress has been made in developing a provisional methodology with the following features:
- Data sources: Existing hospital financial and utilization reporting to the Department of Health Care Access and Information
- What counts as spending: Net patient revenue for inpatient and outpatient services, adjusted for volume and differences in service mix and patient acuity
- Hospital grouping: Hospitals grouped into deciles, such as on which had higher or lower annual spending growth
Work to refine this methodology will start next year and likely continue through 2028. While existing reporting from hospitals will fulfill OHCA’s data needs for its provisional methodology, OHCA has expressed an interest in changing hospital reporting requirements in the future to gather additional data.
CHA will work closely with OHCA to ensure any new reporting requirements are feasible and necessary.
Contact Ben Johnson, CHA vice president, policy, at bjohnson@calhospital.org with questions or feedback.
