have DRGs actually reduced health care costs?

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Yes, DRGs have actually reduced health care costs. Diagnosis Related Group payment codes (DRGs) promote transparency of cost and make it easier to establish which patients would use more and which patients less of healthcare resources.
Moreover, most of the hospitals have global budgets that cover the cost of patient care. For instance, in Germany, if a hospital exceeds its first year budget, then the payments based on DRGs are reduced in the next year.
The Health Affairs article shows that many DRG systems also take into account the physician’s fees. Hospitals that follow best practices of caring for stroke related or other critically ill patients may receive higher payments for maintaining consistently better quality.
In recent times, though there has been a trend of cost-shift to patients, such as user fee, but such increases are linked to the inflation rate. So the real impact on patients is minimal.

keosha answered 7 months ago

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