The French National Authority for Health (HAS) regularly publishes new decisions about add-on reimbursement for medical devices. The decisions made in June 2019 concern various types of devices, including orthopedic, cardiovascular and diabetes devices, and cochlear implants. A total of 32 decisions were made.

On the 11th of June 2019, the Dutch National Healthcare Institute (Zorginstituut Nederland, ZIN) has published a position regarding the positively assessed indications and the appropriate protocols for Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) that have been included in the basic package since 2009 in order to promote the appropriate use of this care. Health insurers can include this information and the quality criteria of the protocols when purchasing HBOT.

On 17th June 2019, the company in charge of the development of the DRG system in Switzerland, SwissDRG SA, has announced the catalog version of SwissDRG 9.0/2020 (2017/2020). Eleven days later, the planning version of SwissDRG (2018/2020) has been published as well.

After having identified the eligibility conditions for teleconsultation and teleexpertise in 2018, the French High Authority for Health (HAS) published a series of documents in late June 2019, for the operational deployment of eHealth services. Each of the new modalities of practice is discussed: teleconsultation, teleexpertise, and teleimaging. Also, the HAS proposed an information document to be given to patients before a teleconsultation.

In June 2019, the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Center (KCE) published a report of the health technology assessment of bariatric surgery.

At the beginning of June 2019, the National Healthcare Institute (Zorginstituut Nederland, ZIN) has published an Overview of the healthcare services, which were excluded or included with restrictions into Basic Insurance Package. Percutaneous liver perfusion with melphalan in patients with metastases from a uveal melanoma was included with restrictions, whereas CardioMEMS PA Monitoring was included in the context of research only.

Mini-method assessment regarding the treatment of lymphedema with lymph node transplantation after breast cancer treatment was initiated by Oslo University Hospital in June 2019. The finalized mini-method evaluation will be published in the National Database for Mini-HTA.

Notification to the Belgian Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AFMPS) is a condition for obtaining reimbursement of compulsory medical insurance for implants and invasive medical devices for long-term use. Only devices that meet the notification requirements will be eligible for health care insurance.

In May 2019, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published one new diagnostics guidance for Lead-I ECG devices for detecting symptomatic atrial fibrillation using single time point testing in primary care, three new interventional procedure guidance (for therapeutic hypothermia for acute ischaemic stroke, collagen paste for closing an anal fistula, and percutaneous mitral valve leaflet repair for mitral regurgitation), two new Medical technologies guidance, and three new MedTech innovation briefings (for SEM Scanner for pressure ulcer prevention, Peezy Midstream for urine collection,and DuraGraft for preserving vascular grafts).

Seminars on hospital reimbursement system for the Netherlands and Russia were added to the online school, as well as the webinar for the Austrian system. MTRC online school is the most cost-effective way to learn about reimbursement systems in a structured way.

The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has investigated whether patients suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma have (better) chances of recovery in case of allogeneic stem cell transplantation. IQWiG concluded that the benefit of allogeneic SCT is unclear.

In mid-May 2019, the network of European HTA agencies, EUnetHTA, announced the final plan of the project OTCA18 “Regional hyperthermia for high-risk soft tissue sarcoma treatment.”