Majority of German sickness funds oppose DRGs (diagnosis related groups) for 2003
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
The inability of Germany's hospitals and sickness funds to agree on details for introducing the diagnosis related groups (DRG) system for hospital reimbursement in 2003 makes it clear that the country is not ready for this yet, claim the majority of statutory health insurance funds. Last week in Siegburg they said that the introduction of DRGs on a voluntary basis for hospitals in 2003 would lead to chaos in calculation methods. They feared that it would lead to a piecemeal adoption of the Australian system, as the German version was far from ready.