Cardiovascular procedures

The HTA body of the Tuscany Regional Healthcare issues three types of documents: full HTA reports, rapid HTA reports, and motivational forms. With regional decree 13989 of June 29, 2023, Tuscany Regional Healthcare has published assessments of nine medical devices in the cardiovascular, peripheral vascular, diagnostic imaging areas, and surgical procedures.

The HTA body of the Tuscany Regional Healthcare issues three types of documents: full HTA reports, rapid HTA reports, and motivational forms. With regional decree 11957 of June 07, 2023, Tuscany Regional Healthcare has published assessments of two medical devices in the cardiovascular and spine areas.

Between late April and May 2023, three more health apps were introduced in the Directory of digital health applications (DiGAs) at the Federal Office for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and thus became reimbursable. These apps can be prescribed by physicians and psychotherapists and will be reimbursed by health insurers. In total, 47 health apps are currently available in the DiGA Directory, and six health apps were delisted from the Directory.

The HTA body of the Tuscany Regional Healthcare issues three types of documents: full HTA reports, rapid HTA reports, and motivational forms. With regional decree 8803 of April 26, 2023, Tuscany Regional Healthcare has published assessments of two medical devices in the cardiovascular area.

On March 16, 2023, the Reimbursement Commission of the Social Security Institution (SSI) released an updated version of the Healthcare Implementation Communique (SUT). The main change relates to the increase in reimbursement fees of services and medical devices. Furthermore, eight new cardiovascular procedure codes were introduced.

OPCS-4 is the clinical coding classification of interventions and procedures undertaken within the NHS in England. It is updated every three years, reflecting current clinical practice to be used for statistical purposes and reimbursement. On April 1, 2023, a new version (OPCS-4.10) came into force. A total of 236 new four-character codes were introduced in multiple areas, including cardiovascular, endoscopy, ENT, gastrointestinal, urology, neurology, gynecology, breast reconstruction, and others.

On March 2, 2023, the decision of the National Union of Health Insurance Funds relating to the update of the CCAM Nomenclature of procedure codes was published in the Official Journal of the French Republic. Changes include registration of new procedure codes, modification and removal of some existing codes. Newly introduced codes concern cardiovascular procedures, interventional radiology, orthopedics, peripheral vascular procedures, and others.

The HTA body of the Tuscany Regional Healthcare issues three types of documents: full HTA reports, rapid HTA reports, and motivational forms. With regional decree 3844 of March 02, 2023, Tuscany Regional Healthcare has published assessments of four medical devices in the cardiovascular and neurovascular treatment areas.

The French National Authority for Health (HAS) released new recommendations about add-on reimbursement of medical devices and medical aids from the meetings of the National Commission for Evaluation of Medical Devices and Health Technologies (CNEDiMTS) in January 2023. Twenty-four recommendations were published in relation to the registration, modification of registration conditions, and renewal of registration for devices in the List of reimbursable products and services (LPPR). Opinions concern cardiovascular and peripheral vascular, neurovascular, and orthopedic devices, in-vitro diagnostics, as well as medical aids.

In the second half of December 2022, the Basque Office for Health Technology Assessment (OSTEBA) released a report aiming to evaluate mitral valve repair surgery as an alternative to mitral valve replacement.

On November 30, 2022, the entity managing the DRG system in Switzerland, SwissDRG, has published the final version of the 2023 DRG system. In total, 21 new DRGs were introduced, and they concern cardiovascular, ENT, gastrointestinal, gynecology, neurovascular, pulmonary, and some other technology groups. Also, three new add-on reimbursement categories were introduced.

In November 2022, NHS Digital published a final summary of core changes from OPCS-4.9 to OPCS-4.10 to be introduced from April 01, 2023. OPCS-4 is a statistical classification for clinical coding of interventions and procedures undertaken within the NHS. It is updated every three years. A total of 236 new four-character codes will be implemented in OPCS-4.10. Key changes concern cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, endoscopy, ENT, nephrology and urology, neurology and neurosurgery, obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedic, and breast surgery fields.