T Csákvári

The Hungarian Care Managing Organization Pilot Program

OBJECTIVES The aim of this article was to provide a description of the Hungarian care managing organization (CMO) pilot program and its environment, incentive structure, and preliminary outcomes. The need to change the behavior of doctors to increase the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the system was the key rationale for the Hungarian CMO pilot program. METHODS After an application process, nine CMOs were entitled to enter into the system in July 1999. By 2006, there were 14 CMOs covering 2.1 million people. The Hungarian CMO program tried to combine the advantages of both the US managed care programs and the UK general practitioner fundholding system, within the constraints and opportunities of a Central-European country committed to a single-payer health insurance system. RESULTS The revenue of CMOs derived from a risk-adjusted capitation. The capitation formula was weighted only by age and sex. The expenditures of the CMOs included all the health expenditures on their patients that occurred in any part of the health care system. The average savings rate for all CMOs for the fiscal years 1999 to 2007 was 4.94%. The highest rates of savings were realized in chronic and acute inpatient care and medical devices. The pilot was discontinued in 2008 without a comprehensive evaluation of the experience. CONCLUSIONS We can conclude that this pilot had a significant contribution to the modernization of the Hungarian health care system.

Cancer screening policy in Hungary: Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor, Basu et al. published an excellent overview on the status of implementation and organization of cancer screening in the European Union Member States. This paper provides a valuable description of current cancer screening policies of the European countries. We would like to give some detailed information on the Hungarian screening programs. Mammography-based breast cancer screening has a long tradition in Hungary. Mammography-based opportunistic breast cancer screening started in Hungary as early as the late 1960s in the city of Bonyh ad. Even the first scientific evidences for the effectiveness of mammography screening in reducing the breast cancer mortality came from large randomized controlled trial performed by a Hungarian radiologist, Prof. L aszl o Tab ar, in two Swedish counties, Kopparberg and € Osterg€otland. Later several mammography screening pilot programs were performed in Hungary. Following the evaluation of pilot programs for mammography screening, a nationwide, organized population based breast cancer screening program was announced in 2001 and started in January 2002. Unlike the ones (45–64 years) given in table 2 of the paper by Basu and coworkers, women aged between 45 and 65 years old were invited for participating in the breast cancer screening program. Opportunistic cervical cancer screening started in Hungary during the 1970s. One should bear in mind that at that time Hungary was a socialist country, behind the “iron curtain” with limited access to the achievements of the developed countries. After the socialist system collapsed in 1990, Hungary initiated new pilot program for the early detection of cervical cancer. This program was financed by the World Bank. After three decades of opportunistic cervical cancer screening activities, an organized, nationwide cervical cancer screening was introduced in Hungary in July 2003 for women aged between 25 and 65 years old. Although in figure 2 of the paper mentioned that the Hungarian cervical cancer screening program’s rollout ongoing, we would like to emphasize that rollout was completed. However, we have several problems with the low participation rate of invited women: “The Hungarian organized, nationwide cervical screening program managed to moderately increase (13.7%) the screening coverage of the target population in the first screening round; therefore, it failed to attract women with high risk outside of the scope of both the previous opportunistic and the newly introduced organized cervical cancer screening program.” Between 2013 and 2015, a new element was added to the organized cervical cancer screening program, in order to increase the participation rate. A pilot program was introduced in 2013 for the involvement of health visitors. It meant that in addition to gynecologists, health visitors, having a B.Sc. degree in health sciences, were allowed to take the smears. The involvement of health visitors resulted in 8.3% increase in the participation rate. In Hungary, we had several pilot programs for colorectal cancer screening. In 1997–1998, the first Hungarian colorectal cancer screening pilot program was done in a well-defined administrative area of the Capital, Budapest, with support from the World Bank Close the gap public health programme. The next colorectal cancer screening pilot program was organized in a small city of Ajka, and the surrounding area in 2003– 2004. Later some other small scale pilot programs were organized in different Hungarian cities (Balatonf€ ured, B ek escsaba, Kecskem et, Nagyat ad). In 2015, we had a new colorectal cancer screening pilot program in County Csongr ad, financed from European Union’s funding (“Social Renewal Operational Programme: SROP-6.1.3A-13/1–2013-0001 To support the extension of pilot screening programs—cervical cancer screening by health visitor and colorectal cancer screening programs”). These pilot programs used immunochemical fecal occult blood test (FOBT) for the early detection of fecal blood. Following the evaluation of this pilot program, Hungarian health policy leaders committed to the introduction of a nationwide colorectal cancer screening program. We hope this program will be launched as soon as possible. Hungary can be considered as a pioneer with the application of immunochemical testing for colorectal cancer. But in Hungary we still did not have a nationwide colorectal cancer program, as it was stated in figure 3. The legal regulation of colorectal cancer screening was a bit confusing in Hungary. Since 1997, a ministerial decree regulates both the opportunistic and nationwide organized screening programs in Hungary. This decree defines breast and cervical cancer screening as an organized, nationwide screening program. Colorectal cancer screening program was mentioned as an organized, nationwide screening program in Hungary on a single day, the December 31, 2005! Never before or after this day colorectal cancer screening was not an organized, nationwide screening program, only opportunistic and/or pilot programs were carried out. We emphasize that the current Hungarian legal regulation (law) also does not mention colorectal cancer screening among the nationwide, organized cancer screening programs. Regarding cancer screening programs, we should mention their cost-effectiveness. In a country, with limited resources for healthcare, financial issues are important. In 2001–2002, Le tt er to th e E di to r

Experiences with Price Competition of Biosimilar Drugs In Hungary in Case of Colony-Stimulating Factor Products

value-based pricing, which reflects disease burden, therapeutic innovation, and social values, is suggested. This study attempts to measure the importance of costeffectiveness and other values for a new anticancer drug. Methods: Through literature reviews and experts’ advices, eight health insurance benefit criteria were selected: disease severity, size of population affected by disease, pediatric medicine, alternative drugs, innovativeness, clinical benefit, cost-effectiveness, and budget impact. Preference for the criteria was investigated by using Discrete Choice Experiments(DCE), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), swing weighting (SWING), and direct point allocation (DIRECT). The survey was conducted in three hundred general population through face to face interview. Respondents were selected using stratified random sampling by age, sex and region. The conditional logistic regression for DCE was conducted with STATA ver.12. Results: In the preference investigation using DCE, people preferentially considered disease severity (OR: 1.837, 95% CI: 1.673 to 2.017), alternative drugs (OR: 1.556, 95% CI: 1.458 to 1.661), and size of population affected by disease (OR: 1.408, 95% CI: 1.285 to 1.543). According to the results by using AHP, respondents considered clinical benefit to be the most important, followed by cost-effectiveness and disease severity as the main evaluation items. As estimated by SWING and DIRECT, clinical benefit was also evaluated as the most important item. There was no difference in the first to third priority evaluation items between SWING and DIRECT. ConClusions: The priorities derived from all methodologies show that clinical benefit and disease severity were more important than cost-effectiveness in general terms. In the situation where decision-making is mostly centered on cost-effectiveness, our results may be seen as the social demand that clinical benefit and the influence of applicable disease should be reflected appropriately in the insurance coverage.