At the end of January 2020, the Decision Forum rejected Focal Impulse and Rotor Mapping ablation approach and workstation RhytmView for the treatment of atrial fibrillation and ex-situ perfusion platform for organ preservation after the brain death of the donor due to its insufficient efficacy evidence.

In severe cases of lipedema, the costs for liposuction will be covered by the statutory health insurance companies from January 2020. The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV) have added several new fee order items to the EBM (German Uniform Evaluation Standard) and set the reimbursement.

Since autumn 2019, MTRC has started the release of the Market Access Magazine with an overview of key reimbursement news for the last quarter, along with analytical reviews on the topic of market access for medical technologies (reimbursement, funding, HTA, innovation payment schemes). Download free of charge from our website.

The French High Authority for Health (HAS) regularly publishes new decisions about add-on reimbursement for medical devices. The decisions made in February 2020 concern various types of devices, for example, cardiovascular and orthopaedic devices, diabetes management systems, etc. A total of 6 decisions were made.

On January 1, 2020, as a part of healthcare reform in Austria, the Austrian health insurance fund (Die Österreichische Gesundheitskasse (ÖGK)) was created by merging the nine former regional health insurance funds. The ÖGK is based in Vienna.

The “Subsidy for promising care” scheme makes it possible to obtain temporary financing for care that looks promising but is not yet reimbursed from the basic health insurance package. The deadline to apply for funding via this scheme is April 7, 2020.

In Sweden, the Centre for Assessment of Medical Technology (CAMTÖ) leads the development of HTA cooperation in the healthcare region Uppsala-Örebro. In February 2020, CAMTÖ started its work on the assessment of peripherally inserted central venous catheter. After the completion of the evaluation process, the report would be published at the web-site of Örebro County Council.

In late 2019, the Nomenclature was updated. The update brought changes regarding the creation of new codes, deletion of codes, modification of existing codes, and the addition of new reimbursement conditions in the fields of dentistry, ophthalmology (including new codes for optical coherence tomography) and others.

In Norway, the mini-HTA for Localizer™ wire-free guidance system designed to mark and guide to non-palpable breast lesions was released at the end of January 2020. The method was determined as efficient and safe. It was recommended to be introduced as part of the clinical routine in the hospital.

The report presents a summary of the reimbursement situation for diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic procedures on the knee joint in osteoarthrosis in Europe. The following procedures are considered: a diagnostic endoscopic examination of knee joint with or without biopsy; endoscopic removal of a loose body from knee joint; endoscopic lavage of knee joint. The analysis covers procedure coding, payment mechanism, reimbursement tariffs and policy restrictions in 11 EU countries including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. It is also possible to add analysis in the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Russia and Turkey.

On the 27th of February, MTRC Director Dr Oleg Borisenko presented at the roundtable on value-based health care and access to medical devices in Moscow, Russia.

In February 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published one new diagnostics guidance (for SepsiTest assay for rapidly identifying bloodstream bacteria and fungi), one new medical technologies guidance (for Episcissors-60 for mediolateral episiotomy) and two Medtech innovation briefings (for Plus Sutures for preventing surgical site infection and National Early Warning Score systems that alert to deteriorating adult patients in hospital).