SECTION 1. Section 8 of Chapter 6D of the General Laws, as appearing in the Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting after the last sentence in  paragraph (b), the following new language:

“Any provider or provider organization that has been identified by the center under section 18 of chapter 12C as exceeding the heath care cost growth benchmark for any given year or whose average relative price for the prior three years exceeds 1.0, shall be prohibited by the commission from making any material change to its operations or governance structure that would otherwise require notice to the commission pursuant to section 13 of this chapter. The commission may exclude a provider or provider organization from this prohibition if the market share of the provider or provider organization is below a threshold as determined by the commission, or if the provider or provider organization’s total medical expenses or relative price are below the statewide median. The prohibition shall continue until the center has determined that the provider or provider organization has lowered its relative price and total medical expenses to a level at or below the cost growth benchmark."