Findings from Department of Health in the Area of Health Insurance Described (Revisiting policy on chronic HCV treatment under the Thai Universal…

Findings from Department of Health in the Area of Health Insurance Described (Revisiting policy on chronic HCV treatment under the Thai Universal Health Coverage: An economic evaluation and budget impact analysis)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Managed Care Weekly Digest -- Current study results on Health Insurance have been published. According to news reporting out of Nonthaburi, Thailand, by NewsRx editors, research stated, "Thailand is encountering challenges to introduce the high-cost sofosbuvir for chronic hepatitis C treatment as part of the Universal Health Care's benefit package. This study was conducted in respond to policy demand from the Thai government to assess the value for money and budget impact of introducing sofosbuvir-based regimens in the tax-based health insurance scheme."

Financial support for this research came from Thailand Research Fund (see also Health Insurance).

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the Department of Health, "The Markov model was constructed to assess costs and benefits of the four treatment options that include: (i) current practice-peginterferon alfa (PEG) and ribavirin (RBV) for 24 weeks in genotype 3 and 48 weeks for other genotypes; (ii) Sofosbuvir plus peginterferon alfa and ribavirin (SOF+PEG-RBV) for 12 weeks; (iii) Sofosbuvir and daclatasvir (SOF+DCV) for 12 weeks; (iv) Sofosbuvir and ledipasvir (SOF+LDV) for 12 weeks for non-3 genotypes and SOF+PEG-RBV for 12 weeks for genotype 3 infection. Given that policy options (ii) and (iii) are for pan-genotypic infection, the cost of genotype testing was applied only for policy options (i) and (iv). Results reveal that all sofosbuvir-based regimens had greater quality adjusted life years (QALY) gains compared with the current treatment, therefore associated with lower lifetime costs and more favourable health outcomes. Additionally, among the three regimens of sofosbuvir, SOF+PEG-RBV for genotype 3 and SOF+LDV for non-3 genotype are the most cost-effective treatment option with the threshold of 160,000 THB per QALY gained."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "The results of this study had been used in policy discussion which resulted in the recent inclusion of SOF+PEG-RBV for genotype 3 and SOF+LDV for non-3 genotype in the Thailand's benefit package."

For more information on this research see: Revisiting policy on chronic HCV treatment under the Thai Universal Health Coverage: An economic evaluation and budget impact analysis. Plos One, 2018;13(2):e0193112. (Public Library of Science - www.plos.org; Plos One - www.plosone.org)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting W. Rattanavipapong, Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP), Dept. of Health, Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand. Additional authors for this research include T. Anothaisintawee and Y. Teerawattananon.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193112. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Keywords for this news article include: Asia, Thailand, Nonthaburi, Health Insurance, Health and Medicine.

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