Diagnosis-Related Groups for Physician Reimbursement?
- Mark J. Segal, PhD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
Diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) are being considered by policymakers as a basis of physician reimbursement for care provided to Medicare inpatients. Under such a system, all physicians' care associated with a hospital admission, classified into one of over 400 DRGs, would be paid for by Medicare in one lump sum. The attractiveness of aggregating the unit of payment, from the individual service to a "package" of services, here the hospital case, lies in the anticipation of new incentives for greater physician cost consciousness. The report by Lowenstein and colleagues1 in this issue of The JOURNAL is one product of an intensive effort, launched by the Department of Health and Human Services and its Health Care Financing Administration, to fulfill a congressional mandate to explore the "advisability and feasibility" of extending Medicare DRG payment, already in place for hospitals, to physicians. The conclusions from this research are to be presented in
