You are seeing this message because your Web browser does not support basic Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing and what you can do to make your experience on this site better.


ABOUT ARCHIVES
Advanced Search

Welcome   | My Account | E-mail Alerts | Access Rights | Sign In


  Vol. 123 No. 1, January 1988 TABLE OF CONTENTS
  Archives
  •  Online Features
  ARTICLE
 This Article
 •Send to a friend
 • Save in My Folder
 •Save to citation manager
 •Permissions
 Citing Articles
 •Contact me when this article is cited
 Related Content
 •Similar articles in this journal

Diagnosis related groups and the transfer of general surgical patients between hospitals

E. Munoz, R. Soldano, H. Gross, D. Chalfin, K. Mulloy and L. Wise
Department of Surgery, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, NY 11042.

This study tested the hypothesis that financial risk would be generated by surgical patients transferred to our hospital from other acute care hospitals under diagnosis related group (DRG) reimbursement. Hospital costs by DRG (exclusive of physician fees) were analyzed for all adult general surgical patients transferred to our medical center from another acute care hospital between Jan 1, 1985, and Dec 31, 1986. Transferred patients (n = 97) had significantly higher resource utilization (ie, hospital costs) than nontransferred patients (n = 2976) within the same surgical DRGs as follows: total mean cost per patient, $17,348 vs $9,460; mean length of stay 21.4 days vs 10.9 days; mean laboratory cost per patient, $1849 vs $975; and mean radiologic cost per patient, $794 vs $397. Transferred patients generated a yearly deficit of $238,717 ($4922 loss per patient) for the hospital, whereas other patients within the same DRGs generated a profit of $727,632 ($489 profit per patient). These data support the hypothesis that DRG reimbursement will provide a financial disincentive for teaching hospitals to accept surgical transfer patients from other acute care hospitals, thus potentially decreasing the access of care for the complexly ill surgical patient.





HOME | CURRENT ISSUE | PAST ISSUES | TOPIC COLLECTIONS | CME | SUBMIT | SUBSCRIBE | HELP
CONDITIONS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY | CONTACT US | SITE MAP
 
© 1988 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.