The new issue of our scientific journal Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs is now online. The issue contains 5 publications on various topics. The editorial is “Economic modeling in health technology assessment – what is acceptable and what makes sense?”.
The assessment of health technologies and the subsequent decision to pay with public funds focus on the concept of value and more precisely on the added clinical and economic value compared to the existing and available alternatives for comparison. The greater the added value of a new health technology, the more likely is the acceptance of a positive reimbursement recommendation. Measuring added value is not a problem because there is a wide range of research tools to accomplish this task. However, the evaluation of added value is problematic. Very often there are no clear criteria of what minimum result is needed for a positive recommendation to pay for new health technology with public funds. Moreover, assessment is a highly subjective process and the various stakeholders in it – doctors, patients, payers and industry – often have divergent positions on the same issue. This fundamental problem illustrates the need to use economic modeling in health technologies assessment and deciding to pay with public funds. Read the whole article here.