EVALUATION OF THE NEW AUSTRIAN INPATIENT REIMBURSEMENT SYSTEM

AbstractFirst, we briefly discuss different approaches for inpatient reimbursement systems. Then, we outline the way from the old per diem payment system in Austria to the new performance-oriented reimbursement strategy called performance-oriented hospital financing (abb. LKF) with limited budget. The LKF-system is split into two main parts: the national core part and the regulation part defined by each federal state. Whereas the core part generally contains the reimbursement of performances for inpatients, the regulation part takes into account the structure-specific quality criteria of hospitals. Consequently, one and the same performance is differently reimbursed in each federal state and in each hospital. Then, we accurately analyse the underlying formulas for reimbursement for general inpatients derived from our system dynamics model illustrated by a numerical example. We close the paper by summarising the limitations and benefits of the LKF-system.