State Health Planning to Improve Access to Care in Massachusetts: Needs and Current Tools
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation
April 30, 2025
A well-functioning health care system should provide affordable and timely access to needed health care for all residents, without regard to their race, ethnicity, income, zip code, age, gender, or sexual orientation. The Massachusetts health care system, despite many exemplary qualities, does not do this, and recent access, affordability, and equity challenges for individuals and certain population groups, such as people of color, have highlighted the shortcomings of a system that is determined largely by market forces and the decisions of private entities. Given the pressures on the current system, there is a renewed interest in exploring how the process of state health planning can improve the allocation of health care resources in service to access, quality, and affordability.
This issue brief offers background on health services planning, describing the concept and outlining its history, including its rise and fall in the United States and in Massachusetts. The bulk of the brief is a catalog of the regulatory and policy tools that Massachusetts uses today that incorporate some aspects of health services planning, and how these tools do and do not interact. The brief concludes with a discussion of the gaps Massachusetts needs to fill to realize a complete, comprehensive health services planning initiative.
- Executive Summary: State Health Planning to Improve Access to Care in Massachusetts: Needs and Current Tools
- Issue Brief: State Health Planning to Improve Access to Care in Massachusetts: Needs and Current Tools
Webinar: Wednesday, May 28, 2025, 11:00 a.m. For details, see “Webinar” Section below. Register for the BCBS State Healthcare Planning webinar.