Germany's New Mental Health Payment System: Who Joins and What Happens?

Germany’s new payment system for inpatient mental health care, where hospitals get paid based on the patient’s diagnosis. This system is called diagnosis-related payment, and it’s designed to encourage hospitals to treat patients more efficiently. But which hospitals are jumping on board? Turns out, it’s the ones that deal with more complex cases and stand to gain more money. This new payment method is supposed to reduce how long patients stay in the hospital, and it does. But it doesn’t seem to affect how many people die or need further care after they leave. So, what’s driving these changes? It could be that hospitals are getting more money for treating complicated cases, and the longer a patient stays, the less money the hospital makes. This is important information for policymakers as they think about how to pay for mental health care.