Investigation of leukaemia and lymphoma AR-DRGs at a Sydney teaching hospital.

Using non-blinded methodology, this study checked the coding of acute leukaemia, non-acute leukaemia and lymphoma episodes assigned to the AR-DRGs R60 A, B, C and R61 A, B during the fiscal year 2000-2001 at a Sydney teaching hospital. The purpose was to investigate whether the assignment of fewer episodes of these diseases to the highest complexity AR-DRGs during that year compared to 1999-2000 was due to miscoding, or due to a true decrease in episodes. A check of all 242 episodes revealed a degree of miscoding (mainly under-coding) of complications and comorbidities that had caused a 15% DRG error rate; nevertheless, there was a true decrease in the highest complexity episodes. The error in DRG assignment may have caused some financial disadvantage to the hospital.