What is it about?
The HRG tariff makes naive assumptions around the cost of a wide range of medical and surgical admissions. One such assumption is that everything within a HRG has roughly the same cost. However the truth is that it is not uncommon for 10-fold variation in the cost of the same HRG across different specialties
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Why is it important?
The English HRG system for costing has very little validity in the real world and has probably been hugely damaging to financial equity within the NHS. Indeed the tariff has promoted extensive abuse of NHS Data Definitions so that outpatient and emergency department attendances are up-coded to 'inpatient' status.
Perspectives
Do not copy the English HRG costing system, instead learn from its many obvious and fundamental errors. Indeed learn from the way that the flaws in the HRG tariff have been concealed from the NHS thereby preventing the development of a tariff based on better principles. Part of a longer series, see http://www.hcaf.biz/2010/Publications_Full.pdf
Dr Rodney P Jones
Healthcare Analysis & Forecasting
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A case of the emperor's new clothes?, British Journal of Healthcare Management, October 2008, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/bjhc.2008.14.10.31300.
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