(a) The director shall enforce the cost targets established by this chapter against health care entities in a manner that ensures compliance with targets, allows each health care entity opportunities for remediation, and ensures health care entities do not implement performance improvement plans in ways that are likely to erode access, quality, equity, or workforce stability. The director shall consider each entity’s contribution to cost growth in excess of the applicable target and any actions by the entity that have eroded, or are likely to erode, access, quality, equity, or workforce stability, factors that contribute to spending in excess of the applicable target, and the extent to which each entity has control over the applicable components of its cost target. The director shall review information and other relevant data from additional sources, as appropriate, including data from the Health Care Payments Data Program, to determine the appropriate health care entity that may be subject to enforcement actions under this section. Commensurate with the health care entity’s offense or violation, the director may take the following progressive enforcement actions:

(1) Provide technical assistance to the entity to assist it to come into compliance.

(2) Require or compel public testimony by the health care entity regarding its failure to comply with the target.

(3) Require submission and implementation of performance improvement plans, including input from the board.

(4) Assess administrative penalties in amounts initially commensurate with the failure to meet the targets, and in escalating amounts for repeated or continuing failure to meet the targets.

(b) Prior to taking any enforcement action, the office shall do all of the following:

(1) Notify the health care entity that it has exceeded the health care cost target.

(2) Give the health care entity not less than 45 days to respond and provide additional data, including information in support of a waiver described in subdivision (i).

(3) If the office determines that the additional data and information meets the burden established by the office to explain all or a portion of the entity’s cost growth in excess of the applicable target, the office may modify its findings, as appropriate.

(4) The director shall consult with the Director of Managed Health Care, the Director of Health Care Services, or the Insurance Commissioner, as applicable, prior to taking any of the enforcement actions specified in this section with respect to a payer regulated by the respective department to ensure any technical assistance, performance improvement plans, or other measures authorized by this section are consistent with laws applicable to regulating health care service plans, health insurers, or a Medi-Cal managed care plan contracted with the State Department of Health Care Services.

(c) (1) If a health care entity exceeds an applicable cost target, the office shall notify the health care entity of their status and provide technical assistance. The office shall make public the extent to which the health care entity exceeded the target. The office may require a health care entity to submit and implement a performance improvement plan that identifies the causes for spending growth and shall include, but not be limited to, specific strategies, adjustments, and action steps the health care entity proposes to implement to improve spending performance during a specified time period. The office shall request further information, as needed, in order to approve a proposed performance improvement plan. The director may approve a performance improvement plan consistent with those areas requiring specific performance or correction for up to three years. The director shall not approve a performance improvement plan that proposes to meet cost targets in ways that are likely to erode access, quality, equity, or workforce stability. The standards developed under Article 7 (commencing with Section 127506) may be considered in the approval of a performance improvement plan.

(2) The office shall monitor the health care entity for compliance with the performance improvement plan. The office shall publicly post the identity of a health care entity implementing a performance improvement plan and, at a minimum, a detailed summary of the entity’s compliance with the requirements of the performance improvement plan while the plan remains in effect and shall transmit an approved performance improvement plan to appropriate state regulators for the entity.

(3) A health care entity shall work to implement the performance improvement plan as submitted to, and approved by, the office. The office shall monitor the health care entity for compliance with the performance improvement plan.

(4) The board, the members of the board, the office, the department, and employees, contractors, and advisors of the office and the department shall keep confidential all nonpublic information and documents obtained under this subdivision, and shall not disclose the confidential information or documents to any person, other than the Attorney General, without the consent of the source of the information or documents, except in an administrative penalty action, or a public meeting under this section if the office believes that disclosure should be made in the public interest after taking into account any privacy, trade secret, or anticompetitive considerations. Prior to disclosure in a public meeting, the office shall notify the relevant party and provide the source of nonpublic information an opportunity to specify facts documenting why release of the information is damaging or prejudicial to the source of the information and why the public interest is served in withholding the information. Information that is otherwise publicly available, or that has not been confidentially maintained by the source, shall not be considered nonpublic information. This paragraph does not limit the board’s discussion of nonpublic information during closed sessions of board meetings.

(5) Notwithstanding any other law, all nonpublic information and documents obtained under this subdivision shall not be required to be disclosed pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Division 10 (commencing with Section 7920.000) of Title 1 of the Government Code), or any similar local law requiring the disclosure of public records.

(d) (1) If the director determines that a health care entity is not compliant with an approved performance improvement plan and does not meet the cost target, the director may assess administrative penalties commensurate with the failure of the health care entity to meet the target. An entity that has fully complied with an approved performance improvement plan by the deadline established by the office shall not be assessed administrative penalties. However, the director may require a modification to the performance improvement plan until the cost target is met.

(2) The administrative penalty shall be deposited into the Health Care Affordability Fund.

(3) Prior to assessing an administrative penalty against a health care entity, the director may consider related provision of nonfederal share, determined to be appropriate by the Director of Health Care Services, associated with Medi-Cal payments, such as expenditures by providers or provider-affiliated entities that serve as the nonfederal share associated with Medi-Cal reimbursement.

(4) To the extent that an administrative penalty is related to a Medi-Cal expenditure, including federal financial participation, the office shall coordinate with the State Department of Health Care Services to ensure appropriate treatment and return of any federal funds pursuant to Subpart F commencing with Section 433.300 of Part 433 of Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

(5) If, after the implementation of one or more performance improvement plans, the health care entity is repeatedly noncompliant with the performance improvement plan, the director may assess escalating administrative penalties that exceed the penalties imposed under paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subdivision and paragraph (4) of subdivision (a).

(6) The director shall consider all of the following to determine the penalty:

(A) The nature, number, and gravity of the offenses.

(B) The fiscal condition of the health care entity, including revenues, reserves, profits, and assets of the entity, as well as any affiliates, subsidiaries, or other entities that control, govern, or are financially responsible for the entity or are subject to the control, governance, or financial control of the entity.

(C) The market impact of the entity.

(e) Administrative penalties shall not constitute expenditures for the purpose of meeting cost targets. The imposition of administrative penalties shall not alter or otherwise relieve the health care entity of the obligation to meet a previously established cost target or a cost target for subsequent years.

(f) (1) For payers and fully integrated delivery systems, the director also shall enforce cost targets established by Section 127502 against the cost growth for administrative costs and profits.

(2) If a payer exceeds the target for per capita growth in total health care expenditures, but has met its target for administrative costs and profits, the payer shall submit relevant documentation or supporting evidence for the drivers of excess cost growth.

(3) This subdivision does not relieve a payer of its obligation to meet targets for per capita growth in total health care expenditures established by Section 127502, and does not limit enforcement actions for payers under this section.

(g) If data indicate adverse impacts on cost, access, quality, equity, or workforce stability from consolidation, market power, or other market failures, the director may, at any point, require that a cost and market impact review be performed on a health care entity, consistent with Section 127507.2.

(h) (1) The director may directly assess administrative penalties when a health care entity has failed to comply with this chapter by doing any of the following:

(A) Willfully failing to report complete and accurate data.

(B) Repeatedly neglecting to file a performance improvement plan with the office.

(C) Repeatedly failing to file an acceptable performance improvement plan with the office.

(D) Repeatedly failing to implement the performance improvement plan.

(E) Knowingly failing to provide information required by this section to the office.

(F) Knowingly falsifying information required by this section.

(2) The director may call a public meeting to notify the public about the health care entity’s violation and declare the entity as imperiling the state’s ability to monitor and control health care cost growth.

(i) The office may establish requirements for health care entities to file for a waiver of enforcement actions due to reasonable factors outside the entity’s control, such as changes in state or federal law or anticipated costs for investments and initiatives to minimize future costly care, such as increasing access to primary and preventive services, or under extraordinary circumstances, such as an act of God or catastrophic event. The entity shall submit documentation or supporting evidence of the reasonable factors, anticipated costs, or extraordinary circumstances. The office shall request further information, as needed, in order to approve or deny an application for a waiver.

(j) As applied to the administrative penalties for acts in violation of this chapter, the remedies provided by this section and by any other law are not exclusive and may be sought and employed in any combination to enforce this chapter.

(k) Following an administrative hearing, a health care entity adversely affected by a final order imposing an administrative penalty authorized by this chapter may seek independent judicial review by filing a petition for a writ of mandate in accordance with § 1094.5 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

(l) After an order imposing an administrative penalty becomes final, and if a petition for a writ of mandate has not been filed within the time limits prescribed in § 11523 of the Government Code, the office may apply to the clerk of the appropriate court for a judgment in the amount of the administrative penalty. The application, which shall include a certified copy of the final order of the administrative hearing officer, shall constitute a sufficient showing to warrant the issuance of the judgment. The court clerk shall enter the judgment immediately in conformity with the application. The judgment so entered has the same force and effect as, and is subject to all the provisions of law relating to, a judgment in a civil action, and may be enforced in the same manner as any other judgment of the court in which it is entered.

(Amended by Stats. 2023, Ch. 131, Sec. 130. (AB 1754) Effective January 1, 2024.)