Ophthalmological procedures

In Sensible Care projects, the Dutch Healthcare Institute, together with other parties, is investigating the possibilities for improving care pathways for patients. As of early November 2020, there are 30 ongoing projects, including two projects for assessing knee and hip osteoarthritis treatment and medicines for castration-refractory prostate carcinoma at the final evaluation phase.

The French National Authority for Health (HAS) released new decisions about add-on and medical aid reimbursement of many medical devices from the meetings of the National Commission for Evaluation of Medical Devices and Health Technologies (CNEDiMTS) in July 2020. Decisions concern drug-eluting coronary stents, TAVI, orthopedic appliances, wound dressing, stoma obturator, toric intraocular lens.

The HTA body of the Tuscany Regional Healthcare issues two types of documents: HTA forms and motivational forms. With a regional decree 3047 of March 2, 2020, Tuscany Regional Healthcare has published assessments of eight medical devices of various therapeutic areas.

The HTA unit of the Lombardy region opens the possibility for the public to comment on the health technologies which are in the assessment phase. The call is open until February 28, 2020.

In early January 2020, the Danish Health Authority (Sundhedsstyrelsen) has updated the national clinical guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with age-related cataracts.

In late November 2019, new HTA activities were published on the website of regional HTA program of Lombardy Region, after a period of inactivity. Twenty-six (26) new technologies are currently in various stages of the HTA process, and they should all be completed in 2020.

In early October 2019, the Health Evaluation and Quality Agency of Catalonia (AQuAS) published the assessment of cosmetic laser iridoplasty. The work revealed that it is recommended to undergo this intervention exclusively within clinical investigation settings and after getting approval by the ethics committee.

MTRC has developed three reports on the key market access topics, including innovation funding, health technology assessment and funding frameworks for medical devices. These reports help to understand the relevance of these frameworks to certain types of medical technologies, including ophthalmology technologies. This post provides some key facts about the HTA, funding and innovation payment landscape for ophthalmology devices in Europe.

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.

The Clinical Coding and Schedule Development (CCSD) group develops and maintains procedural and diagnostics nomenclature for private payers in England. In October/November 2018, five new procedure codes for laser correction of refractive error following non-refractive ophthalmic surgery, insertion of urethral catheterization device, injection of botulinum toxin for hyperhidrosis, laparoscopic and robotic-assisted pancreatoduodenectomy have been added to the CCSD Schedule.

In mid-June, 2018, the Catalan Agency for Quality and Healthcare Evaluation, AQuAS, published the Clinical Practice Guidelines for open-angle glaucoma.

On the 26th of April of 2018, the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) has announced the call for a tender for the pilot study “Transcorneal Electrical Stimulation in Retinitis Pigmentosa” in the Official Journal of the European Union. The deadline for the requests is the 22nd of June, 2018, 14:00