A new study published in the April issue of Health Affairs finds that both Europe and the United States could do more to adopt better reimbursement and pricing policies around medical devices.
It's well known that the U.S. spends more on health technology than Europe without the gains in patient outcomes to show for it.
Though there's a considerable body of research evaluating the value of pharmaceuticals, very little research has been done around medical devices, which make up a growing proportion of health care expenditures across developed countries. "We were surprised by the lack of research focused on medical devices," Corinna Sorenson, lead author of the study, told DOTmed News.
Sorenson and her research team developed the study to understand how countries determine the value of medical devices and use that evidence for reimbursement models.
According to Sorenson two major obstacles currently stand in the way of value-based reimbursement adoption in the U.S. First, the current system lacks incentives to generate the necessary evidence. Second, it's unclear who should take on and fund such studies.
With these challenges in mind, the study authors offered a few strategies that may help the U.S. overcome these obstacles.
Reforming and expanding current medical device regulations may motivate companies to provide better pre-market evidence for devices, for example.
Another problem is developing policies to link evidence of value with reimbursement. The authors suggest developing different reimbursement rates for different levels of clinical effectiveness.
This may also require developing different co-payments for treatments of high value versus those of questionable value.
These strategies may help encourage the use of services whose clinical benefits exceed its costs and likewise discourage use when the benefits do not justify the expenditure.
