AREAS WHERE QUICK SOLUTIONS CAN BE IMPLEMENTED IN REIMBURSEMENT SYSTEM PROCEDURES
It is considered that many issues experienced in the reimbursement system related to delays and many expected improvements are due to the implementation procedures and do not require legislative changes. Accordingly, improvement areas can be summarised under 4 headings.
1. Timeline
• The timeframe for reimbursement application calendar and the evaluation periods should be announced in January each year.
• As there are two periods in one calendar year, the results of the evaluations of the period should be decided and announced before the beginning of the subsequent application period.
• The meeting invitations of TEDK (Medical and Economic Evaluation Commission) should be dispatched to its members in January each year for the whole year.
• Deadlines for reimbursement applications should be standardised as March for the first period and September for the second period.
2. Planning of the Meetings
• Due to the ongoing global pandemic, it is suggested that meetings should be organised online as much as possible, permitting distant access, by making use of the new technologies.
3. Official Correspondence
• Reimbursement approval, rejection, and postponement communications should be officially sent to the companies.
• More specifically the scientific rationale of the rejection decisions should be communicated to the companies.
• The requests of the companies to make presentations on the technical documents related to the pharmacoeconomic evaluation, to either the commission or to the secretariat of the commission should be evaluated.
• When there are changes in the commission structure the companies should be officially informed.
4. The Publication of the Health Implementation Communiqué
• To shorten the approval (signature) process, pharmaceutical product-related decisions should be published, similar to Medical Devices decisions, in Health Implementation Communiqué without waiting for the other listings.
