Forensic practice fees, billing, and collection procedures are quite different from those in general psychiatry. Most forensic practices have far fewer "clients," and individual bills are usually larger. Collections are usually better (and less frequently discounted) in forensic practice, and resolving billing disputes is far more straightforward. Medicare, Medicaid, other insurance coverage, p...

Spontaneous pain, a poorly understood aspect of human neuropathic pain, is indicated in animals by spontaneous foot lifting (SFL). To determine whether SFL is caused by spontaneous firing in nociceptive neurons, we studied the following groups of rats: (1) untreated; (2) spinal nerve axotomy (SNA), L5 SNA 1 week earlier; (3) mSNA (modified SNA), SNA plus loose ligation of the adjacent L4 spinal...

This study was designed to quantitatively assess the impact of deficiencies in completeness and precision of hospital case cost data on cost weight compression. For the nursing per diem model versus the nursing workload model the average compression was 19.6 percent (for the 25.9 percent of cases that changed cost weight by at least 5 percent). We concluded that the compression of case mix cost...

This paper examines the diagnosis related group-level (DRG) price effects of recent hospital mergers and acquisitions that occurred in Ohio and California. Empirical results indicate that hospital mergers and acquisitions increase prices at the DRG level. Further, price increases are greater in DRGs where the merging hospitals gained substantial market share compared to DRGs where the merging h...

Casemix refers to a mix of patients classified in some way. It describes a system which groups patients by predetermined factors into clinically meaningful and resource homogenous groups to describe the hospital or health service product (a measure of output). A number of patient classification (casemix) systems have been developed for various purposes. The casemix system used by Australian acu...

In this article, alternative methodologies for recalibration of the diagnosis-related group (DRG) weights are examined. Based on 1984 data, cost and charge-based weights are less congruent than those calculated with 1981 data. Previous studies using 1981 data demonstrated that cost- and charge-based weights were not very different. Charge weights result in higher payments to surgical DRGs and l...

On October 1, 2013 the reporting of diagnoses and procedures in the U.S. will transition from the clinical modification of the ninth revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9-CM) to the tenth revision (ICD-10). The impact of conversion to ICD-10 on Medicare MS-DRG payments to hospitals was estimated using 2009 Medicare data. A minimal hospital payment increase of 0.05 perc...

Pharmacy cost data from the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) Clinical Database for specific diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) were reviewed to assess their applicability to a university medical center and to identify opportunities to reduce costs. UHC headquarters was contacted by telephone to determine UHC's data collection methods. Pharmacy costs for DRG 302 (kidney transplant) at the U...