The Use of Diagnosis-Related Group-Based Reimbursement in the Czech Hospital Care System

Zuzana Kotherová, Martina Caithamlová, Juraj Nemec and Kateřina Dolejšová
Additional contact information
Zuzana Kotherová: Department of Public and Social Policy, Institute of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Pekařská 16, 158 00 Praha 5, Czech Republic
Martina Caithamlová: Department of Biomedical Technology, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, nám. Sítná 3105, 272 01 Kladno 2, Czech Republic
Juraj Nemec: Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Lipová 41a, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Kateřina Dolejšová: Department of Biomedical Technology, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, nám. Sítná 3105, 272 01 Kladno 2, Czech Republic

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 10, 1-18

Abstract: (1) Background: Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRG), one possibility of a hospital payment system, are currently used in most European countries. Introduced to the Czech system in the 1990s, the DRGs are currently used mainly for care reporting and partly for reimbursement. According to most experts, the use of DRG remain controversial. The goal of this paper was to study the effects of the current Czech DRG system on hospitals financing and, on this basis, to propose possible changes to the reimbursement mechanism in the Czech Republic. (2) Methods: Qualitative research methods were used for evaluating DRG mechanisms of application in three selected healthcare establishments in the CR in the period of 2012–2018. (3) Results: Our study shows that the current implementation of the DRG system is set up in a way that is very similar to traditional flat rates and is unlikely to yield major positive effects of the DRG mechanism, such as predictability of payments for hospitalisation cases, care quality and efficiency and transparent financing. (4) Conclusions: Based on our results, deep systemic change of the reimbursement mechanism in the Czech Republic is necessary. We propose five partial measures leading to the cultivation of the Czech DRG.

Keywords: DRG; Czech Republic; hospital economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5463/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5463/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:10:p:5463-:d:558356

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().