Clinic of Radiology with own patient ward and coding/billing responsibility: Economic Performance Indicators on the example of a German Hospital offering the full spectrum of IR.

Zielsetzung To analyze Economic Performance Indicators (EPIs) of a Clinic of Radiology (CoR) with own patient ward and coding/billing responsibility offering the full spectrum of Interventional Radiology (IR), and to compare those EPIs with nationwide standard (InEK-cost-matrix KEPIs).

Material und Methoden The CoR offers a 24/7 IR service with all types of elective and emergency interventions. The IR team treats patients in two angio suites accomodated in the ten beds on a dedicated CoR ward. Referring physician management, case documentation, coding, controlling and billing are direct CoR responsibilites. The presented CoR EPIs originate from our controlling and were processed in a master thesis.

Ergebnisse Between 2010 and 2013, the CoR case-mix-index increased steadily from 1.1 to 1.5, and accordingly the cases featured markedly increased complexity over time. In 2013 (2010), CoR EPIs “staff, material and infrastructure costs” were -22.2% (-21.4%), +16.9% (-7.4%) and -30.5% (-21.8%) referred to the respective InEK-cost-matrix EPIs. These outcomes resulted in an annual cost advantage of several hundred thousand Euros to the benefit of the CoR and generated important deadweight effects for different clinical partners within the hospital.

Schlußfolgerungen EPIs of a CoR with own patient ward and coding/billing responsibility offering the full spectrum of IR are markedly better compared with nationwide standard. We believe that major reasons for this phenomenon are the highly specialized CoR services ranging from diagnosis over treatment to aftercare provided by one hand with optimized workflow, information flow and transparency. In the future, more hospitals may utilize this economic superiority as adjustment screw to maintain competitive edge.