What you should know about the SHUR cost study.

This article critically examines a study funded by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) to estimate the cost of implementing the proposed System for Hospital Uniform Reporting (SHUR). Data for the study were gathered by Morris, Davis & Company who used field teams working with personnel in 50 test hospitals. The author states that the study findings do not reflect the real cost of implementing SHUR for the nation's hospitals. Rummer argues that the study sample included a greater percentage of hospitals in states which already had uniform reporting systems than is actually the case nationally, and that the study was done under tremendous time pressure which did not allow staff from participating hospitals to review and comment on the field teams' findings. On the basis of the SHUR Cost Study, HCFA has extrapolated the cost of reclassifying accounting and statistical information for all hospitals to be $65,648.011; the author estimates the true figure at over $100 million. She concludes that a new approach to meeting the government's information requirements will have to be designed.