Enda Kenny
Question:299 Mr. Kenny asked the Minister for Health and Children the cost of a hip operation carried out by a private consultant; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23439/98]
Written Answers - Hospital Services.
Enda Kenny
Question:303 Mr. Kenny asked the Minister for Health and Children the cost of a hip operation carried out on the medical card scheme in each orthopaedic hospital; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23443/98]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 299 and 303 together.
The national casemix programme of the Department of Health and Children collects information in relation to both hospital activity, and its associated costs, in a limited number of public hospitals who participate in casemix. Information in relation to private consultants, operating in private hospitals, is not collected by my Department.
All casemix public hospital activity is grouped together, for statistical analysis, and is not broken down between medical card patients and any other type of patient; or between patients in public or private beds.
Casemix, which involves the monitoring and comparison of costs and activity between hospitals, classifies patients into discrete classes or groups, which share common clinical attributes and similar patterns of resource use. The system presently in use in Ireland categorises activity into 495 diagnosis related groups, (DRG's). DRG 209 relates to major joint and limb reattachment procedures of the lower extremity, including total, partial and revised hip, knee and ankle replacements. Casemix estimates an average cost per case for all cases in each DRG, but does not break down costs to the level of individual procedures. Costs are averaged over all hospitals in the casemix programme, rather than by individual hospital, in order to produce meaningful national data.
The casemix data for 1996, the latest date for which information is available, indicates that the average cost of a hip replacement is £4,378.