Inek

Acronym for Institute for the hospital pay system. The Institute (InEK gGmbH) was founded on 10 May 2001 in the legal form of a non-profit limited liability company. The founding members of the Institute were the central associations of the health insurance funds, the Association of Private Health Insurers and the German Hospital Federation.

InEK supports hospitals and health insurance companies and their associations in the continuous development of the DRG system for the billing of inpatient hospital services. InEK is financed via the DRG system surcharge. The hospitals charge an annual amount per inpatient case (2007: 0.90 ). The amount collected in this way is then transferred to the InEK once a year by the individual hospitals. Approximately 1/3 of the DRG system surcharge is retained to finance the Institute, and approximately 2/3 is distributed to hospitals that participate in the calculation of the DRG relative weights.