To evaluate the impacts of DRGs payment reform on patients, medical insurance fund and hospitals, then to steadily promote the payment reform.

The reimbursement data of inpatients covered by NCMS yet beyond the single-disease payment were collected from two DRGs pilot hospitals from January 2016 to June 2018. Such means as descriptive statistics, t test and method of interrupted time series analysis were used to compare the changes found in the average out-of-pocket payment, actual reimbursement rate, average per-hospitalization compensation, average length of stay, and average hospitalization expense before and after the DRGs payment reform.

After the reform, the average out-of-pocket payment and average length of stay began to fall slightly instead of the increasing trend (β₃ were -72.79, -0.11, respectively, and P<0.01), the upward trend of average hospitalization expense slowed down (β₃ was -113.55, and P<0.01), actual reimbursement rate and the average per-hospitalization compensation stayed the original growth trend (β₃ were 0.10, -31.15, respectively, and P values were 0.08, 0.09, respectively).

DRGs encourages the hospitals to curb the average hospitalization expenses, with the growth trend kept at a slower pace. The payment reform does not increase the financial burden of patients, and tends to ease such pressure on funds, but the long-term effect remains to be seen.

Diagnosis-related groups; Evaluation; Inpatients; Cost control; Interrupt time series analysis