Introduction - hospital cost containment

Abstract

Hospital cost inflation has continued unabated despite a panoply of regulatory initiatives during the 1970s. Despite the application of these cost containment policies, annual price increases in the cost of medical care that regularly exceed the change in the cost of living compel fresh approaches to cost control. The eight authors whose papers address this Issue herein present descriptive evidence and some evaluative analysis of several important techniques that provide genuine reductions in the rate of health care inflation. Given the importance of data grouping for payment purposes, the growth of various prospective payment systems, and the likely need for private, as well as public, peer review of delivery patterns, these papers shed welcome light on the principal components of health care cost containment policies during the 1980s.