Improving the DRG system in Hungary.

Abstract

Handling cases should be a profitable endeavour for the hospitals, but high caseloads have them running in the red. The reason for this may very well be the way the weighting is structured in the DRG system. The current way of thinking is that the indirect costs of the hospital care must be distributed on the case's days and the average of the direct costs can be added into the calculation of the DRG class's weighting factor. A dissenting opinion calls for creating the total weight proportionally by the direct costs. This paper shows an alternative, which balances both opinions by implementing corrective measures for the DRG class weigh, and thus is able to make complicated cases profitable.