Germany

The colorectal cancer screening program became organized in Germany on April 19, 2019. Until now, only the breast cancer screening program was the only organized screening program. The Evaluation Committee has already updated the EBM catalog.

At the beginning of April 2019, the Federal Cabinet has adopted the draft of a "Law on the Establishment of an Implants Registry in Germany and other amendments to the Fifth Book of the Social Code” (Implants Registry Establishment Law, Implantateregister-Errichtungsgesetz, EIRD).

The Innovation Fund in Germany was created in 2015 for the period from 2016 to 2019, with the primary aim to improve health care for policyholders and patients in statutory health insurance (SHI). In March 2019, the governing parties have agreed in the coalition agreement that the innovation funding should be continued at least until March 2021 with an annual budget of €200 million.

On behalf of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), a working group of the Hannover Medical School (MHH) has assessed the treatment outcomes in case of nasoalveolar molding (NAM) for cleft lip and palate. The report was published in February 2019.

During November-December 2018, the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) has introduced an organized screening program for the early detection of cervical cancer and initiated consultation procedure for prostate cancer screening.

In January 2019, the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has selected four medical topics from citizens' suggestions for scientific assessment in the form of HTA reports (depression in children, mHealth solutions for multiple sclerosis, elephantiasis, and pain in endometriosis).

In January 2019, the Institute for the Hospital Remuneration System (InEK) has published the of medical devices and procedures approved for innovation funding (NUB). Out of 709 applications for drugs and technologies, 180 (25%) received the positive status 1, and 69 of them were the requests for the medical technologies.

At the end of December 2018, the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) decided that optical coherence tomography for the diagnosis and therapy control of several retinal diseases will be covered by the statutory health insurance.

In October of 2018, InEK has published the list of the devices, previously (in 2018) eligible for innovation funding via NUB, and which will be integrated into DRG payment system since 2019. Only two devices will be transferred into the DRG catalogue.

At the end of October of 2018, DIMDI has published the preliminary version of the procedure catalogue for the coming year. MTRC will report about new procedures and other changes included in the catalogue after the release of the official version in the beginning of 2019.

In October 2018, the Austrian HTA body, the Ludwig-Boltzmann Institue (LBI), published the update on the PET/PET-CT topic. The report was done together with the Berlin Technical University.

In July of 2018, the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) has initiated the discussion regarding the establishment of the minimum quantity requirements for the surgical treatment of breast cancer and bronchial carcinoma. As the quality of surgery is directly dependent on the quantity, the number of operations performed at hospital and on the designated surgeon, the objective is to understand the importance of the experience and routine practice of the operations to reach the successful treatment outcomes and to determine a minimum number of operations, which should be performed in hospitals to gain enough experience.