International comparisons of healthcare costs are growing in importance for a number of different applications. The use of common approaches to converting costs such as GDP purchasing power parities (PPPs) often does not reflect price differences in healthcare in an appropriate manner. This...

Background: This paper analyses schemes to promote the authorisation of and reimbursement for orphan drugs. Methods: 8 countries - Australia, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, USA - were studied to compare specific regulations for orphan drugs regarding drug...

Background: Market authorization does not guarantee patient access to any given drug. This is particularly true for costly orphan drugs because access depends primarily on co-payments, reimbursement policies and prices. The objective of this article is to identify differences in the availability...

In der öffentlichen Diskussion um die Einführung einer Bürgerversicherung zur Reform der Finanzierung der Gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung werden häufiger Modelle mit Kopfpauschalen oder Kopfprämien diskutiert. Dabei sind verschiedene Herangehensweisen bei der Ermittlung der Höhe der...

Objective: Several EU countries are determining reimbursement prices of pharmaceuticals by cross-referencing prices of foreign countries. Our objective is to quantify the theoretical cross-border spill-over effects of cross-reference pricing schemes on pharmaceutical prices in the former EU-15...