AmCham’s Health Care Committee Meets with the NHIF
By AmChamPublished On 17/05/2018
Concerning the necessity of systematic and planned increase of the availability of innovative drugs to insured persons, NHIF representatives said that an accurate NHIF List of Medicines with new generic and innovative medicines is expected in September, 2018. After that the NHIF’s List of Medicines will be continuously generated with no extra budget needed. Recent amendments to the Rulebook on the conditions, criteria, method and procedure for placing medicines on the List, amending the List or removing medicines from the List were interpreted to Committee members. They will enable placing demands for putting medicines on the List of Medicines to the NHIF during the year. Considering recent experiences and solutions predicted by the new Draft Law on Public Procurement, it is announced that the application of the MEAT (Most Economically Advantageous Tender) criteria, which has been used in procurement of some medical devices by NHIF, will be expanded to procurement of vaccines and medicines for finding additional ways of making innovative medicines available to patients. Revision of special contracts and development of additional modules has been predicted, with the essential consideration of sharing with the producers.
It has been concluded that the first significant steps in areas which have contracts, such as cataracts and in vitro fertilization, have already been taken when it comes to collaboration with healthcare institutions outside the Net Plan for reducing waiting lists. At the same time, it has been pointed out that the most important presumption of further inclusion of private healthcare providers is detailed regulation of this sector, defining standards and protocols of healthcare services through laws and by-laws.
At the end of the meeting, the Draft Scope of the Study on the Financing of Innovative Healthcare Therapies discussion was proposed, which has been discussed with NHIF and which would be jointly implemented by AmCham, NHIF, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance during 2018.
