The Negative Impacts of Increased Concurrent Review of Psychiatric Inpatient Care

Concurrent review is a rapidly growing phenomenon that negatively affects the nature and quantity of work done by quality assurance and utilization review programs while generating increased costs to hospitals. It has also sapped the time and energy of physicians, harmed the physician-patient relationship, and limited the availability of certain physicians. While perhaps saving money for insurance companies, concurrent review has definitely detracted from the quality of certain aspects of patient care.

It would appear that third and fourth parties, in the interest of economics, are increasingly willing to accept and even foster diversion of physicians' efforts and reductions in treatment quality. Whether hospitals, clinicians, and patients can survive these changes remains to be seen.

When evaluating and comparing past patterns and current trends in concurrent review, policymakers will have to take into account a variety of issues and points of view. The negative impacts of concurrent review as seen by hospitals and other providers of patient care will be among the issues they will need to consider.