Does malnutrition influence hospital reimbursement? A call for malnutrition diagnosis and coding
Does malnutrition influence hospital reimbursement? A call for malnutrition diagnosis and coding (SchienceDirect).
Malnutrition is highly prevalent in patients admitted to the internal medicine ward. Coding malnutrition can increase hospitalization costs and hospital reimbursement. In Portugal, diagnosing and coding malnutrition increased severity of illness in 39%. This resulted in an estimated increase of hospitalization cost of €1.3 million/y. The resulting reimbursement may compensate the costs associated with malnutrition.
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Methods
Patients admitted to the internal medicine ward of Centro Hospitalar do Médio
Ave between April 24 and May 22, 2018 were screened by Nutritional Risk
Screening 2002, and patients classified as at “risk for malnutrition” were
assessed by the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA). [...]
Conclusions
Identifying malnourished patients and including this highly prevalent diagnosis
in medical records allows malnutrition coding and consequent increase of HC.
This can improve the potential hospital reimbursement, which could contribute
to the quality of patient care and economic sustainability of hospitals.
Quelle: SchienceDirect, 25.01.2020
