Health Care Cost Transparency Board

Our work

The Cost Board has four main duties to keep rising health care costs under control:

• Set a spending goal for health care providers and insurers in Washington to stay under
• Track how much insurers spend on health care
• Find trends in rising health care costs
• Report to the Legislature with suggestions to lower health care costs

Much of our work focuses on keeping down the spending of health care insurance companies. The amount that insurers spend reflects the costs that people in Washington pay for their health care. Keeping spending under control doesn’t fix health care costs all on its own, but it’s one part of improving health care costs in Washington.

Set a spending goal

Using economic trends, we set a spending goal for health care providers and insurers to stay under. We call this limit the health care cost growth benchmark — or simply the benchmark.

While the benchmark doesn’t stop health care costs from growing, if Washington goes over the benchmark, we know our costs are growing too quickly.

Track health care spending

We track whether health care provider groups and insurers stay under the benchmark. Every year, carriers report how much they spend on health care services in Washington. We collect this information every year in the performance against the benchmark data call, also called the data call.

Tracking this data helps us keep providers and carriers accountable for their part in Washington’s rising health care costs.

Learn more about the data call.

Find trends in rising health care costs

Along with the data call, we also find and study the trends in rising health care costs. This work, called cost driver analysis, looks at factors including:

• Amount of health care services provided
• Price of services
• Combination of health care services
• Patient demographics
• Regional differences

Report to the Legislature

We report to the Legislature every year with recommendations on how to lower health care costs. These reports include our cost driver analyses and the names of any providers and carriers that went over the benchmark.

Go to our resources page to see our legislative reports, plus other materials on health care cost transparency.

Board members

The Cost Board has 14 members, all with backgrounds in paying for health care. The Governor appoints nine of the members.

To help the Cost Board consider all the sides of health care costs, some board members represent specific groups that pay for health care:

• Washington patients
• Local governments
• Small businesses
• Large employers

Other board members are experts in health care economics and financing.

Meet the Cost Board members.

Committees

Four committees support the Cost Board. The Nominating Committee finds experts to join the three advisory committees, which give insights into health care cost concerns.

• Nominating Committee
• Data Issues Advisory Committee
• Primary Care Advisory Committee
• Health Care Stakeholder Advisory Committee

Get involved

You can stay informed about the Cost Board’s work to keep rising health care costs under control by signing up for our emails and attending our meetings. You can also check out our news page for our latest updates and read our reports to see our recommendations to the Legislature.