Preliminary Results of Diagnosis-Related Groups Based Inpatient Care Payment Implementation in Russia

While many countries have used diagnosis-related groups (DRG) for inpatient care for a long time, Russia developed and introduced its own federal DRG model just in 2012. The number of Russian regions implemented DRG-based inpatient care rises constantly. However, the transition to a new payment system has not been finished yet. At the same time there are debates about the impact of a new payment system on the hospitals performance and the feasibility of such a rapid transition to the DRG-based payment system, therefore the preliminary results of the new payment system implementation in Russia should be evaluated. The hypothesis of the research is that the implementation of DRG-based inpatient care payment in Russia resulted in the reduction of length of stay, the increase in the complexity of treatment cases as well as in a significant change in funding for a number of hospitals. The data on key indicators of hospitals performance for eight Russian regions during the period from January 2013 to September 2015 was analyzed. According to the results of the study the impact of the transition to a new inpatient care payment system on the reduction of length of stay and the increase in complexity of treatment cases is less evident than the impact on financial risks occurring for a number of hospitals.