Prospective Payment for Medicare Inpatient Psychiatric Care: Assessing the Alternatives

This article reports the findings of an empirical analysis of per case and per diem models of prospective payment for Medicare inpatient psychiatric care. Quantitative measures are presented that show the improvement of a per diem model over a per case model. The research supports the viability of per diem prospective payment and identifies directions for future research that would refine current per diem models.