Surviving "Payment by Results": a simple method of improving clinical coding in burn specialised services in the United Kingdom.

Introduction: Coding inpatient episodes plays an important role in determining the financial remuneration of a clinical service. Insufficient or incomplete data may have very significant consequences on its viability. We created a document that improves the coding process in our Burns Centre.

Materials And Methods: At Yorkshire Regional Burns Centre an inpatient summary sheet was designed to prospectively record and present essential information on a daily basis, for use in the coding process. The level of care was also recorded. A 3-month audit was conducted to assess the efficacy of the new forms.

Results: Forty-nine patients were admitted to the Burns Centre with a mean age of 27.6 years and TBSA ranging from 0.5% to 65%. The total stay in the Burns Centre was 758 days, of which 22% were at level B3-B5 and 39% at level B2. The use of the new discharge document identified potential income of about 500,000 GB pound sterling at our local daily tariffs for high dependency and intensive care.

Conclusion: The new form is able to ensure a high quality of coding with a possible direct impact on the financial resources accrued for burn care.