Editing Case mix (section)

==Risks and opportunities==
Casemix systems and in particular DRG systems mean that a lump sum is paid based on a diagnosis (and maybe particular treatment aspects). Comorbidity may trigger an increase in the sum paid. Such systems tend to set the incentive to provide treatment at the lowest possible costs, and to have many treatment cases in order to improve the revenues of the health provider. Also expensive cases that could have complications are avoided, and side diagnose left for treatment in separate stays. Further, there is an ongoing struggle between those using the comorbidity of increase the price in individual cases, and those who calculate the price that is going to be paid for a particular case group in the following year.
Casemix systems are liked by economists because they may effectively reduce the costs of treatment. However, in order to ensure that the quality of treatment does not suffer from attempts by service providers to reduce the costs of cases, extensive monitoring of outcome quality is essential.  
Casemix systems come with costs for administration for the quality monitoring systems, for the cost calculating institutes, and for keeping diagnosis and procedure coding schemes up to date. Unfortunately these costs are never mentioned in the reports.
A side effect of casemix is also the shortening of the stay of patients and some increased time for administrative work in hospitals. As such, the so beneficial time between health providers and patients is considerably reduced. Also, the focus of attention shifts from a holistic view of a human patient to 'a disease that is treated'.