Issues in casemix funding for acute inpatient psychiatric services and their relevance to mental health nursing.

With increased recognition by government, health administrators, and clinicians of the need to simultaneously contain health expenditure, improve the productivity and efficiency of health services and maintain quality of patient care, applications of casemix funding have been advocated as an alternative means of financing acute hospital care. Currently in Australia, the Commonwealth's casemix development program is encouraging the States and Territories to participate in certain casemix initiatives. Acute psychiatric hospital care and treatment have been excluded from the initial stages of the implementation of casemix in recognition of a number of inherent obstacles or challenges affecting the utility and accuracy of casemix in funding the psychiatric sector. Despite anecdotal claims that the reduced length of stay that often occurs under casemix payment systems may negatively impact upon the quality of care and patient outcomes, to date little empirical research has been directed towards measuring the potential impact of psychiatric casemix on the quality of patient care. Psychiatry cannot afford to ignore the casemix debate on account of its current exclusion from the early phases of implementation. To do so is to run the risk of having casemix imposed at some later stage in the absence of consultation. In the meantime it is vital that mental health professionals, including nurses, participate in the development and implementation of casemix, and contribute to research aimed at increasing or maximizing the relevance of casemix to the funding of psychiatric services.