title: Benchmarking tools for reducing costs of care.
abstract: Publicly available data provide an excellent resource for benchmarking a hospital's performance around diagnostic groups. The benchmarking analysis should seek to identify any unexpected differences in a hospital's average costs relative to those of similar hospitals. A good starting place for such analysis is the most frequent diagnostic groups for Medicare, as defined by Medicare severity-based diagnosis-related groups. A finding of higher-than-expected costs relative to those of peers can provide an impetus for further investigation.
authors.affiliation: American Hospital Directory, Louisville, KY, USA. wshoemaker@ahd.com
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shoemaker
mesh_terms: D019985:Benchmarking / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003363:Cost Control / Q000379:methods; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D006276:Health Facility Size; D017721:Hospital Costs / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016304:Hospitals, Private / Q000191:economics; D014481:United States