title: DRGs and the idea of a just price.
abstract: Ostensibly, the DRG prospective payment system represents a modern effort to legislate an enforceable system of just prices. As a practical matter, however, justice is conflated with mere familiarity, and the real goal of DRGs has always been cost containment. Abstract and concrete discussions of the computation of DRG payment schedules illustrate their actual operation.
mesh_terms: D003363:Cost Control; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups / Q000191:economics*; D035082:Federal Government; D005249:Fees and Charges; D006801:Humans; D011445:Prospective Payment System / Q000191:economics*; D040841:Resource Allocation; D012935:Social Justice; D014481:United States