A new clinical complexity model for the Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Groups.

Background: The Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Groups (AR-DRG) underwent a major review in 2014 with changes implemented in Version 8.0 of the classification. The core to the changes was the development of a new methodology to estimate the Diagnosis Complexity Level (DCL) and to aggregate the complexity level of individual diagnoses to the complexity of an entire episode, resulting in an Episode Clinical Complexity Score (ECCS).