Massachusetts government should step in to check overcharging by large health care providers, state Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

Speaking at Friday's annual meeting of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, Coakley said that the highest reimbursement rates in the health care market are determined by the relative market clout of the providers and not by the quality of the care.

Coakley recommended that new regulatory actions should be taken to tackle overcharging by health care providers. She said providers should receive a market power review once they hit a certain size. Either the Department of Health or some other agency should be allowed to make the market power review.

The state attorney general also said that health care providers must disclose prices for health care procedures to patients.

She also recommended that the state should have the power to intervene and reject health care provider contracts that put excessive burden on consumers.

Making the recommendation for state intervention, she said, “We need to set the stage for limited and temporary government intervention to bring the market into alignment and reduce costs.”

Coakley stressed that she was not ready to believe the market could correct itself on its own.