In its fight against AMR, VALUE-Dx seeks to investigate the economic value – especially from a long-term societal perspective – and policies plus innovative funding models of rapid diagnostic tests. A major aim is to incentivise the uptake of these tests as they are valuable instruments to ensure rational antibiotic prescribing and thus to tackle AMR.
Within the project, a study was recently published to map policies related to Health Technology Assessment (HTA), pricing and reimbursement of diagnostics for community acquired acute respiratory tract infection (CA-ARTI) in Europe.
The study indicates that the overall level of policy implementation in pricing and reimbursement for diagnostics is rather low. In addition, it is shown that HTA as a supportive tool to inform pricing and reimbursement decisions at national levels is rarely used in the study countries. However, pricing and reimbursement policies, supported by HTA, can contribute to patient access and uptake of health products.