International comparison of systems to determine entitlements to medical specialist care: performance and organizational issues

Summary Objective: CVZ has asked us to provide a comparison of criteria and procedures that different countries use to determine entitlements to medical specialist care. This question was asked within the context of the recent introduction of the DBC (diagnosis treatment combinations) system as an alternative to existing methods of financing of hospital services. Methods The analysis covered priority systems in nine countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. To meaningfully compare existing criteria and procedures of different countries and analyze the possibilities and limitations of priority setting systems, we used an analytical framework for international comparison recently developed by Hutton and co-workers (Hutton et al., 2006). The framework was created to encompass the many aspects of fourth hurdle systems. It can deal with the legal and political characteristics at the system level and the detailed nuances of varying assessment and decision-making procedures at the decisional level. It analyses priority systems at two levels: 1. Policy implementation: the establishment of the fourth hurdle system as a policy decision of the government, the policy objectives of the system, its legal status, and its relationships with the remainder of the health system, with other public sector bodies, and with other stakeholders, such as industry and patient groups; 2. Individual technology decision: the processes by which individual technologies are dealt with by the system, for example, assessment processes, how decisions are made, and how they are implemented. ... etc.