Spine procedures

On June 13, 2024, the Clinical Coding and Schedule Development (CCSD) working group, which develops and maintains procedural and diagnostics nomenclatures for private payers in England, published Bulletins 196 and 092 with changes to be implemented no later than August 8, 2024. Five new procedure codes related to endoscopy, ENT, orthopedics, and spine, as well as seven new diagnostic codes were introduced.

On December 04, 2023, the Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits Agency initiated its work on a few more health economic assessments of Sedaconda-ACD by Sedana Medical, a disposable product for administering anesthetic gases for patients treated on a ventilator and an alternative to intravenous anesthetics as well as robotic systems for spine surgery, including ExcelsiusGPS by Globus Medical, Mazor X Stealth by Medtronic, Cirq by Brainlab. The assessments are planned to be accomplished during 2024.

In October 2023, the annual update of the Swedish procedure coding system (Classification of Health Care Measures, KVÅ) was released to come into force on January 1, 2024. A total of 70 new surgical procedure codes and 17 new medical procedure codes were introduced concerning endoscopy, ENT, men’s health, nephrology and urology, peripheral vascular, and spine.

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 September 2023. Twenty 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, peripheral vascular and neurovascular, neurology and neurosurgery, ENT, spine, ophthalmology, and orthopedic devices, as well as medical aids.

On June 8, 2023, Belgian National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (INAMI-RIZIV) published an updated List of reimbursable devices and Nominative lists of brands to come into force on July 1, 2023. Three new material codes concerning cardiovascular and spinal procedures were introduced. Several new branded devices were registered on the Nominative Lists connected to new and already existing material codes.

The Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits Agency is currently conducting several health economic assessments of products for electrical spinal cord stimulation. The assessments were commissioned by the Medical Technology Product Council as the first step of the national Orderly Introduction process for new medical devices. The evaluations are planned to be accomplished during 2023.

In April 2022, the Clinical Coding and Schedule Development (CCSD) working group, which develops and maintains procedural and diagnostics nomenclatures for private payers in England, published Bulletins 0183 and 0080 with changes to be implemented no later than June 14, 2022. Eleven new procedure codes and nine new diagnostic codes were introduced.

In mid-December 2021, the Danish Health Data Agency (Sundhedsstyrelsen) published the Health Care Classification System (Sundheds-væsenets Klassifikations System, SKS). The most significant changes include: 41 new diagnosis codes and 21 procedure codes were added. The newly added procedure codes concern mainly spine area and orthopedic procedures.

On April 20, 2021, the Dutch Healthcare Institute (ZIN) published an annual report on the progress of the conditional reimbursement program. In 2020, there were 13 ongoing projects under the program, six of which concerned medical technologies. Furthermore, in 2020, percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic discectomy for the treatment of lumbosacral radicular syndrome in lumbar disc herniation was included in the basic insurance package as regular care.

In February 2021, the Health Technology Assessment Agency of the Health Institute Carlos III published the report for the efficacy and safety of robotic spinal surgery compared to manual surgery in spinal fusion.

The HTA body of the Tuscany Regional Healthcare issues two types of documents: HTA forms and motivational forms. With a regional decree 554 of January 18, 2021, Tuscany Regional Healthcare has published assessments of eight medical devices of various therapeutic areas, including devices for the treatment of cardiovascular conditions, personal diabetes management system, endoscopic devices, and pedicle screw system.

In Finland, the Health Care Services Selection Council (Terveydenhuollon palveluvalikoimaneuvosto, PALKO) is responsible for making recommendations regarding the research, treatment, and rehabilitation methods. Currently, the Council is working on assessments of chronic low back pain treatment and screening for severe combined immune deficiency in a neonatal heel sample.