Dutch Healthcare Authority updated the first release of the DRG package for 2024

On June 29, 2023, the NZa published an update of the first release of the DRG package (RZ24a update) because of the request from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport to recalculate the tariffs based on a corrected 2023 price index for material costs. The first release of the DRG package for 2024 (RZ24a) that applies to specialist medical care and geriatric rehabilitation care was published on April 20, 2023.

There is a fixed system for calculating the indexation percentage for the DRG package tariffs. The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport calculates it based on figures from the Central Planning Bureau and formally informs the NZa. The NZa uses this percentage to calculate the tariffs for specialist medical care for the coming year.

In 2022, inflation was exceptionally high. It has not been visible in the figures of the Central Economic Plan (Centraal Economisch Plan, CEP) of March 2022. Still, it became visible in the Macro Economic Overview (Macro Economische Verkenning, MEV) in September 2022. In calculating the indexation percentage for 2024 tariffs, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport used the regular indexation system, comparing the CEP of March 2023 with the CEP of March 2022. Due to the incidental adjustment to the MEV in autumn 2022, the comparison between the MEV of September 2022 and the CEP of March 2023 should have been made. As a result, the final 2023 price index for material costs has been set too high: it has been set at 9.99%, but it should have been set at 7.02%. This error was detected by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport in May 2023.

The NZa has decided to publish the recalculated tariffs as an update of the first release of the DRG package (RZ24a update) to minimize the delay in the negotiations between health insurers and healthcare providers for 2024.

The full details in Dutch can be found here.

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