Importance of coding co-morbidities for APR-DRG assignment: Focus on cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.

Background: The All Patient-Refined Diagnosis-Related Groups (APR-DRGs) system has adjusted the basic DRG structure by incorporating four severity of illness (SOI) levels, which are used for determining hospital payment. A comprehensive report of all relevant diagnoses, namely the patient's underlying co-morbidities, is a key factor for ensuring that SOI determination will be adequate.

Objective: In this study, we aimed to characterise the individual impact of co-morbidities on APR-DRG classification and hospital funding in the context of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.