Costs and Performance of English Mental Health Providers.

DISCUSSION AND LIMITATIONS: The results suggest that some providers may have to increase efficiency in order to remain financially viable if providers are paid national fixed prices (tariffs) under the new payment system. Although the classification system for payment is not based on diagnosis, a limitation of the study is the inability to explore the effect of diagnosis due to poor coding in the MHMDS. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVISION AND USE: We find that some mental health care providers in England are associated with higher costs of provision after controlling for characteristics of service users and providers. These higher costs may be associated with higher quality care or with inefficient provision of care. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICIES: The introduction of a national tariff is likely to provide a strong incentive to reduce costs. Policies may need to consider safe-guarding local health economies if some providers make substantial losses under the new payment regime. IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: Future research should consider the relationship between costs and quality to ascertain whether reducing costs may potentially negatively impact patient outcomes. PMID: 28604355 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics - Category: Psychiatry Tags: J Ment Health Policy Econ Source Type: research