Does therapeutic reference pricing always result in cost-containment?: The Hungarian evidence
Section snippets
Methods
August 2003 has been selected for baseline period of the analysis, as it was the last month before the introduction of the therapeutic reference pricing system. In April 2004 the Hungarian government mandated a 15% price cut for all products; so the last month (March 2004) before the price reduction has been selected the comparator month for calculating the impact of the therapeutic reference pricing system on prices, reimbursement levels, co-payments and DDDs. In sensitivity analyses
Results
Public price, reimbursement level and patient co-payment of statins before and after the introduction of therapeutic reference pricing are depicted in Table 1. The National Health Insurance Fund allows pharmaceutical companies to change the prices of their products only at the certain occasions, i.e. at September 2003 and 1 January 2004 within our investigation period.
One of the expected benefits of reference pricing is the incentive for manufacturers to reduce the prices of original products.
Discussion
Therapeutic reference pricing is one of the potential cost containment methods for pharmaceuticals. However, therapeutic reference pricing could induce potential medical adverse events [5] if differences in therapeutic effects (see efficacy, safety and interaction profile) of included products are not taken into account, and switching is not closely controlled by physicians. In these cases switching requires careful monitoring and consequently could increase the cost of non-pharmaceutical
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