IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v34y2025i3p472-499.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Diagnosis Related Payment for Inpatient Mental Health Care: Hospital Selection and Effects on Length of Stay

Author

Listed:
  • Franziska Valder
  • Simon Reif
  • Harald Tauchmann

Abstract

We study a policy introducing diagnosis related payment for inpatient mental health care in Germany with rates decreasing over length of stay. Using data on all hospital cases, we first examine which hospitals voluntarily opt into the new scheme. We show that specialized hospitals that treat more complicated cases and are reimbursed more highly under the new scheme select into it. Second, we study the effect of diagnosis related payment on length of stay. We find that diagnosis related payment is associated with large reductions in length of stay but has no effect on mortality, post‐acute care, or the ambulatory sector. We argue that the reductions in length of stay are driven by the fact that diagnoses related reimbursement is higher for more complex cases and by payment decreasing over length of stay. This novel evidence contributes to a scarce literature on the role of payment systems for inpatient mental health care and provides important insights for policymakers.

Suggested Citation

  • Franziska Valder & Simon Reif & Harald Tauchmann, 2025. "Diagnosis Related Payment for Inpatient Mental Health Care: Hospital Selection and Effects on Length of Stay," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(3), pages 472-499, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:34:y:2025:i:3:p:472-499
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.4920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4920
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.4920?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:34:y:2025:i:3:p:472-499. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.