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Value-based healthcare in Portugal
Necessity is the mother of invention
A report from The Economist Intelligence Unit
1© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
Contents
About this report 2
Introduction 3
Chapter 1: Evolution of a system in crisis 4
Chapter 2: The post-crisis era of reform 8
Conclusion 11
2 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
Value-based healthcare in Portugal: Necessity is the mother
of invention is an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report,
commissioned by Gilead Sciences. Value-based healthcare
looks at health outcomes of treatment relative to cost. In this
particular paper, The EIU examines the way in which the recent
economic and financial crisis has shaped health technology
assessment in Portugal; the role of the hospital sector as
a decentralised power source; and promising initiatives in
integrated care, family health units and a new process for the
re-evaluation of health technologies.
In November-December 2015 The EIU conducted three
interviews with experts on value-based healthcare in Portugal.
The insights from these in-depth interviews appear throughout
the report. The EIU would like to thank the following
individuals (listed alphabetically) for sharing their insight and
experience:
 Pedro Pita Barros, professor, Nova Business School in Lisbon
 Ricardo Baptista Leite, former member of the Portuguese
parliament
 Carlos Gouveia Pinto, professor, Lisbon School of Economics
and Management
The EIU bears sole responsibility for the content of this
report. The findings and views expressed in the report do not
necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor. Andrea Chipman
was the author of the report, and Martin Koehring was the
editor.
December 2015
About this
report
3© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
Introduction
Despite being one of the smaller and less
affluent countries in the EU, Portugal has been
ahead of many of its neighbours in making
value measurement an active part of its health
technology assessment (HTA) process. As one
of the EU states most adversely affected by the
global financial crisis of 2007-08, Portugal has
also been forced to adapt to economic constraints
that have, in turn, helped to frame the evolution
of its approach to HTA.
Portugal’s economy was guided by a demanding
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the
troika—the European Commission, the European
Central Bank (ECB) and the International
Monetary Fund—between 2011 and 2014,
which put the country under severe economic
constraints, according to Ricardo Baptista Leite,
a former member of the Portuguese parliament
and an infectious-disease and public-health
expert.
With a health system that is financed primarily
through general taxation and a population of just
under 11m people, Portugal’s total (private and
public) expenditure on healthcare reached 9.1%
of GDP in 2013, according to the latest available
OECD data. This is above the OECD average and
was the 14th-highest level of spending as a
share of GDP in the 34-member OECD in that
year. However, in per-capita terms (at constant
prices and assuming purchasing power parity),
healthcare spending in Portugal ranked only
25th, with spending falling since 2011, when the
MoU was introduced.
“But despite the fact that the troika does a lot
of lip service on value-based health, all of the
measures applied to the Portuguese health
system were merely financial,” Dr Leite says.
“Of course, we complied with that, but we also
had a clear view, and what we decided to do was
to achieve not only financial solvency but also
sustainability.”
Efforts to increase efficiency and a greater
emphasis on generic drugs have been
counterbalanced by increasing consumption of
healthcare, making it harder to rein in costs.
Continued concerns about escalating healthcare
costs, as well as the desire to get the most out of
limited resources, have led to a series of reforms
of the health system, including more integrated
health delivery, greater autonomy for healthcare
providers setting up their own primary health
clinics and, most recently, an overhaul of the
country’s HTA system.
In addition to investing more in preventive
healthcare, Dr Leite explains, “we have tried
to shift the way we were financing not just
hospitals, but also access to innovation. That has
been a slower process, but we did achieve some
important changes.”
This paper will first look at the evolution of
Portugal’s reimbursement and pricing system
against the backdrop of the economic and
financial crisis and will then examine the post-
crisis era of reform.
4 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
Chapter 1: Evolution of a system in
crisis1
Portugal’s health technology assessment
(HTA) process has traditionally been limited to
pharmaceutical products. However, one of the
country’s newest reform initiatives aims to put
medical devices through similar evaluations.
The country is also unusual in the way in which
responsibility for healthcare spending is
arranged. Although the central administration of
the health system, the Administração Central do
Sistema de Saúde (ACSS), is charged with setting
budgets, hospitals have significant power over
the allocation of funding.
A system of cost-sharing
Portuguese healthcare is delivered through
three co-existing and overlapping systems.
One of these is universal, while the other two
are characterised by more limited access. These
systems encompass both private and public
providers and different levels of cost-sharing.
Portugal’s national health service, the Serviço
Nacional de Saúde (SNS), has offered universal
healthcare coverage since 1979 and is funded
through general taxation. It includes a range of
public and private providers. However, there is no
comprehensive coverage for all services.
Certain professions have access to special public
and private insurance schemes known as “health
sub-systems”, which provide comprehensive or
partial coverage to between one-fifth and one-
quarter of the population. The plans are financed
through employee and employer contributions,
including state contributions for those employed
in the public sector.1
Finally, a further 10-20% are covered by private
insurance funds or voluntary health insurance
(VHI).
The level of cost-sharing for healthcare is highest
for pharmaceutical products, with reimbursement
levels ranging from 0% to 100% and reduced
co-payments by certain population groups, such
as pensioners. Patients with conditions that
have a major impact on quality of life, including
cancer and some chronic diseases, are eligible
for full reimbursement of essential or life-saving
medication, such as insulin.2
Authorisation, regulation, distribution and
surveillance of pharmaceuticals and medical
devices are concentrated within the National
Authority of Medicines and Health Products,
the Autoridade Nacional do Medicamento e
Produtos de Saúde, I.P. (INFARMED), which
was established in 1993 as part of the Ministry
of Health. INFARMED conducts HTAs and
recommends reimbursement for pharmaceutical
products only; as we will see in Chapter 2, reforms
of the HTA system introduced in 2014 will allow it
1
Barros, PP, Machado, SR et
al, “Portugal Health System
Review”, Health Systems in
Transition, Vol. 13, No. 4,
2011, European Observatory
on Health Systems and
Policies, p. xvi.
2
Ibid.
5© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
to undertake economic evaluations of both drugs
and medical devices.
INFARMED is responsible for both reimbursement
decisions and the periodic re-evaluation of
approved technologies based on a comparative
efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness profile, a
process that can lead to a change or reduction
in price or the reimbursement rate as well as
the removal from the list of reimbursable drugs.
Decisions on whether to reimburse a drug are
based on the type of disease and the specifics of
the patient’s situation, including the severity of
the disease or the importance of prolonging life.
The agency began issuing guidelines for carrying
out cost-effectiveness studies on drugs for sale
in pharmacies as early as 1998, making it one of
the first HTA agencies in Europe to do so.3
In 2006
this mandate was extended to hospital drugs.
The outpatient list of approved medicines,
which is updated monthly, includes more than
7,200 drugs, of which 4,300 are considered to
be essential. Non-essential drugs are subject to
substantial co-payments of between 31% and
85%.4
In the inpatient sector, for prescribing, drugs
must be included in both the National Hospital
Pharmaceutical Formulary and local hospital
formularies; if this is not the case, prescribers
must provide a justification for using the
medicine in question. These requirements may
result in access inequalities across hospitals and/
or regions.
INFARMED has responsibility for determining
the maximum manufacturer price of outpatient
prescription medicines. The agency has used
international reference pricing based on the
average price in selected EU countries since
2003. Starting in 2007, it used prices from four
countries—Spain, France, Italy and Greece. In
2015 these reference countries were changed
to include France, Spain and Slovakia, with the
average of the three used for the retail market
and the lowest for hospital prices.5
International
reference pricing is used for all drugs except
generics.
In the case of medicines for hospital use only,
a similar combination of reference pricing and
central reimbursement evaluation is used;
however, once this reimbursement is approved,
individual hospitals have the ability to review the
use of a drug and establish a purchasing contract
with the manufacturer. Central reimbursement
decision is not followed by funding allocation to
drugs. Hence hospitals are the budget holders of
drugs. Hospitals are not permitted to purchase
drugs or negotiate for their use if they have not
been approved nationally for reimbursement.
In 2007 the Portuguese parliament passed
legislation introducing maximum prices, based
on the lowest price of the basket of reference
countries and budget controls for new drugs in
public hospitals, requiring assessment of new
drugs based on therapeutic added value and cost-
effectiveness.6
Still, by 2008 Portugal’s pharmaceutical
expenditure, not including hospital medicines,
was around 2.1% of GDP, comparably higher than
in many other OECD countries.
Health budgeting in an age of austerity
The government has regularly negotiated with
pharmaceutical companies in an effort to reduce
its overall spending. Since 1997 the industry
has signed regular framework agreements with
the ministries of health and finance committing
to reforms, limits of expenditure and industry
financial contributions. In 2014 the payback from
the industry amounted to €160m (US$173m),
and for 2015 it was agreed to be €180m.7
This
represents over 7% of the total annual medicines
bill (in retail prices).
Moreover, the government has repeatedly
introduced price cuts for medicines, including
a 30% reduction for generics in 2008; a 6%
mandatory discount in the retail price of all
reimbursed drugs; a 7.5% reduction in biologics
in 2010; and a cut in 1,400 branded drugs in
2013.
3
Ibid., p. 45.
4
Vogler S and Leopold
C, “Access to essential
medicines in Portugal”,
commissioned by Health
Action International
Europe, July 2009, pp. 27
and 32.
5
Ministry of Health,
Decreto-Lei n. 97/2015,
June 1st 2015. Available
at: http://www.
portaldasaude.pt/NR/
rdonlyres/96677839-
3EB3-4ABF-B7E8-
B9CDF2B43D3D/0/Decreto_
Lei97_2015_SiNATS.pdf
6
Barros et al, “Portugal
Health System Review”,
p. 45.
7
IMS, “ Portugal:
Compromise Reached over
Payback Agreement”,
IMS Pharma Pricing &
Reimbursement, January
2015, Vol. 20, No. 1, p. 18.
6 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
Under the agreement with the troika—the
European Commission, the European Central
Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary
Fund—reached in 2011, the government agreed
to cap drug expenditure at 1.25% of GDP in
2012 and to around 1% of GDP in 2013 and
2014, according to Carlos Gouveia Pinto, a
professor at the Lisbon School of Economics and
Management.
Portugal’s efforts to reform its drug pricing
policy have contributed to significant reductions
in pharmaceutical spending since 2010.
Total expenditure on retail medicines in the
Portuguese SNS stabilised at below €1.2bn
annually between 2012 and 2014, down from
more than €1.6bn in 2010.8
OECD data show
that in Portugal per-capita pharmaceutical
expenditure in real terms fell by an annual
average of 6.8% during 2010-13, while sales
remained relatively stable in the OECD on average
over the same period.9
Generic drugs have been a key part of the focus
on cost control in Portuguese pharmaceutical
policy, which has combined both price reductions
and an increase in reimbursement rates to
provide incentives. The market share of generic
medicines reached 22.6% of the total value
of pharmaceutical market sales (at ex-factory
prices) in Portugal in 2013—above countries
such as Greece (15.1%) and Spain (18.5%),
but below Italy (41.5%) and Poland (54.8%)—
according to data from the European Federation
of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations
(EFPIA).10
But while efforts to control expenditure have
been more effective in the ambulatory sector,
they have been less so in the hospital sector,
according to Professor Gouveia Pinto.
The hospital sector: A decentralised
power source
The hospital sector has traditionally had a
significant amount of autonomy and been less
subject to performance indicators than other
parts of the Portuguese healthcare system.
The finance ministry provides the health ministry
with a global budget for the health service, which
is allocated to individual institutions within the
system, including public hospitals. The ministry
introduced diagnosis-related groups (DRGs)
gradually from 1997 to 2002. Since 2003 they
have been used to establish total funding for
SNS hospitals and inpatient care, accounting
for 75-85% of public hospitals’ inpatient
budget.11
The Portuguese authorities use DRGs
to set hospital budgets, rather than to define
payments for sequences of treatments. Because
the DRG system requires the collection of data
on an individual patient basis, the resulting
improvement of available information helps
hospitals to adjust their budgeting for case-mix
and other factors specific to hospitals, thereby
allowing resources to be allocated more evenly.12
The health service has invested in making
clinical trials within hospitals part of its health
strategy, allowing both engagement with the
pharmaceutical industry and early access to new
technologies for compassionate use. Yet the fact
that hospital boards could negotiate directly with
the pharmaceutical companies creates its own
problems, Dr Leite notes.
“Most of the time, for most pathologies, there
are three or four first-line drugs, and this leads
to regional disparities, which is bad for the SNS
because it makes it difficult to negotiate on
price volume,” he says. At the same time, he
argues, hospital administrators are unwilling
to relinquish this source of power. “A regional
system would work better, as agencies could
supervise one another and show they could
compare prices.”
Hospitals have been successful in some cases
at negotiating further price discounts to the
maximum price approved by the government,
according to Pedro Pita Barros, an economics
professor at Nova Business School in Lisbon. He
adds that some hospitals have also managed
8
INFARMED and ACSS
from presentation by
João Almeida Lopes,
president of the Portuguese
Pharmaceutical Industry
Association (APIFARMA),
to Rethinking Pharma
conference, 2015.
9
OECD, OECD Health
Statistics 2015.
10
EFPIA, The Pharmaceutical
Industry in Figures, Key
Data 2015, p. 17. Available
at: http://www.efpia.eu/
uploads/Figures_2015_
Key_data.pdf
11
Barros et al, “Portugal
Health System Review”, pp.
xvii, 70-71.
12
Ibid., p. 70.
7© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
to create consortia to achieve higher volumes
to improve negotiations with pharmaceutical
companies.
Portugal has made efforts in recent years
to reform the hospital sector and improve
the quality of care, including through the
introduction of new management models,
payment systems and safety standards.
As part of this process, hospitals have instituted
a number of performance indicators that reflect
access, quality, productivity and financing. The
OECD praises the Portuguese approach to quality
monitoring and improvement as “particularly
sophisticated”, employing disease-specific
registers and electronic patient records to help
drive reforms.13
However, despite compiling extensive data
on hospital activities and outcomes of care,
Portugal has yet to significantly link financial
incentives to the quality of hospital services—
just 5% of hospital revenue is related to relevant
performance indicators.14
In some specific cases the government has been
trying to move away from the current global
budgeting system to models in which hospitals
are financed through contracts paid per patient.
Dr Leite refers to the treatment of HIV, where
hospitals are eligible for higher reimbursement
rates if they improve patients’ health, such as
keeping virus counts low and CD4 counts (which
are an important part of the human immune
system) high in HIV patients. “It’s an interesting
example,” he says, “and it’s a model that needs to
be perfected, but I believe it’s going in the right
direction.”
Yet problems persist with maintaining consistent
clinical practices across the sector, the OECD
points out, adding that Portuguese healthcare is
still “over-reliant” on the hospital sector.15
13
“Portugal: Raising
Standards,” OECD Reviews
of Health Care Quality, May
27th 2015, p. 3.
14
Ibid., p. 33.
15
Ibid., pp. 14 and 19.
8 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
The impact of the global financial crisis and the
particular restrictions introduced as a result
of the troika negotiations with Portugal have
provided the catalyst for a series of reforms,
starting in 2010.
In particular, hospitals were forced to present
a strategy for reducing their expenditure, and
healthcare providers were encouraged to deliver
more integrated care. At the same time, the
health ministry hired retired physicians to deal
with a shortage of doctors and established a
group for primary healthcare reform, along with
a new governance model to shape the reforms.16
These policies have been underpinned by efforts
to empower patients, including the greater use
of websites and other ways of informing health
consumers. More recently, the government has
undertaken an ambitious plan to overhaul its
system of conducting HTA.
Integrated care
Compared with many of its European neighbours,
Portugal has been in the vanguard of OECD
countries in introducing a more integrated
delivery of healthcare services.
The government began to develop integrated
care pathways to deal with an ageing population
and increasing rates of chronic illnesses in
2008, publishing its new guidelines in 2013.
The pathways involve co-ordinating medical and
nursing services in hospitals, primary healthcare
and long-term care.17
As part of this process, the government has set
up integrated disease management programmes,
characterised by a balance between incentives
and sanctions to improve care for conditions such
as obesity, chronic renal disease and pulmonary
hypertension.18
“The integrated approach won’t be applicable
to everyone, but if it is a disease with high
prevalence or high impact on the budget, it may
make sense to have a programme integrating all
services and to make sure the financing system
isn’t funding administrative procedures,” notes
Dr Leite. The approach is especially important for
diseases such as diabetes, which still has a 13%
prevalence in Portugal, significantly higher than
the OECD average, he adds.
It remains difficult, however, to draw a conclusion
at this point about whether the integrated care
structure has led to improved outcomes for
patients, according to Professor Pita Barros.
“Partial evaluations seem to point to not much
difference in outcomes and in outputs, although
a more comprehensive review is required in my
view, and care needs to be taken to compare
Chapter 2: The post-crisis era of
reform2
16
Ibid., pp. 17ff.
17
Ibid., p. 14.
18
Ibid., p. 19.
9© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
appropriately,” he says. This is in part because a
focus on patient outcomes is still not as widely
accepted within the system, he adds.
Family health units
Portugal has traditionally placed a high priority
on specialist hospital care, but the health system
has suffered from a relatively low number of
general practitioners (GPs) compared with other
countries. At the same time, the health service
restricts access to specialist care, with GPs
playing the role of gatekeepers, leading many to
bypass their local surgery and visit emergency
departments.19
Recent healthcare reforms
have attempted to correct this and to improve
efficiency gains in healthcare delivery.20
In particular, there has been an effort to look
more closely at efficiency and outcomes in
the primary-care system, which is currently
dominated by two different models: primary
healthcare units (PHCUs) and family health
units (FHUs). PHCUs, the traditional form of
primary-care delivery in Portugal, operate under
a chain of command with decisions made by
regional health administrators and healthcare
professionals employed as civil servants. In 2007
the government established a newer model—
family health units—with the aim of increasing
co-ordination between multidisciplinary
providers, giving GPs and primary-care nurses
greater flexibility and bringing GPs closer to
patients. FHUs generally comprise between three
and eight GPs and a similar number of family
nurses, who are invited to volunteer to form their
own partnership groups to deliver primary care
together.
There are a number of other differences between
FHUs and PHCUs. Acute cases are treated in
separate GP-staffed facilities in some PHCUs,
while FHUs treat acute cases during the GPs’
normal working hours. PHCUs only handle
medical consultations, while FHUs also offer
regular appointments with nurses.21
Under
the system FHU teams receive performance-
related payments that reward accessibility and
quality, including their success in controlling
hypertension, avoiding diabetic complications in
patients or other health indicators.22
The OECD notes that the reforms “have been
successful in improving accessibility, efficiency,
quality and continuity of care, as well as
increasing the satisfaction of both professionals
and citizens”.23
However, challenges remain.
According to the OECD, FHUs appear to
consistently outperform PHCUs, so that parts
of the population have higher-quality access
to care than others. The OECD argues that
the government could do more to encourage
traditional PHCUs to transform themselves into
FHUs, including by introducing incentives.24
This
is particularly crucial in view of the impending
shortage of GPs as many retire, and given the
potential gains to be reaped from developing the
role of the family nurse.
Now we have to really consider how to motivate
those who are not yet interested in moving into
the new system because the evidence is so clear,”
Dr Leite says, calling the programme a “real-life
clinical trial in austerity times”.
SiNATS: A continuous process of
evaluation
The most notable recent reform to the
Portuguese health system has been the
introduction of a new national system of health
technology assessment, the Sistema Nacional de
Avaliação de Tecnologias de Saúde (SiNATS), as
part of INFARMED in 2014.
Previously, as we have seen, INFARMED used HTA
to help determine pricing and reimbursement of
medicines as well as to control expenditure, using
both relative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness
measures.
SiNATS extends the evaluation system to all types
of technologies, starting with medical devices,
and gives priority to contract-based financing
agreements with manufacturers. The evaluation
process is expected to look at the feasibility
of risk-sharing agreements and the need for
additional monitoring of medicines. Under the
19
Ibid., p. 99.
20
Barros et al, “Portugal
Health System Review”, p.
xviii.
21
Portugal: Raising
Standards, p. 25.
22
Ibid., p. 19.
23
Ibid., p. 14.
24
Ibid., p. 25.
10 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
more formal contract system, pharmaceutical
companies will be required to pay back the excess
if they exceed budget projections, and cost-
effectiveness is calculated both pre- and post-
marketing.
The most crucial change brought in by the new
initiative is that HTA will now be used to help
to re-evaluate the health technologies that are
already authorised and funded by the national
health service. SiNATS will reassess existing
technologies in comparison with alternatives,
using both manufacturers’ information and data
on patient outcomes from national registries of
patients treated on the SNS for conditions such
as cancer and HIV/AIDS.25
“The idea is to have
a continuous process of evaluation,” Professor
Gouveia Pinto says.
One key issue that SiNATS seeks to solve is the
existing flawed reimbursement model, which
tends to be inconsistent and political, according
to Dr Leite. “The truth is that, at the end of the
day, since the model isn’t as perfect as we would
like it to be, the question is whether the state will
reimburse the drug despite the fact that it passed
the HTA challenge,” he says.
Consequently, SiNATS seeks to ensure that the
HTA process becomes more transparent and
streamlined and that it involves a wider range of
stakeholders, including patient associations.
Professor Gouveia Pinto argues that the
introduction of SiNATS was motivated by the
government’s belief that the regulation of
hospital drug expenditure was ineffective. “While
doctors agree more with systems of efficiency,
SiNATS is taking into account results, not just
cost-containment,” he observes.
The creation of SiNATS and its new evaluation
procedures have the potential to create
additional delays to decisions about new
technologies, especially during the pricing
and reimbursement process. This challenge is
expected to have a greater impact on branded
hospital medicines, such as those for cancer and
rare diseases, although INFARMED has said that
it is looking into providing a route for accelerated
access to innovative medicines that appear to be
promising.
One key factor that will determine the success
of SiNATS is its ability to be ruthless about
taking technologies whose efficacy is no longer
supported by scientific evidence off the market,
Dr Leite says. “The only way I think we are going
to fix the reimbursement issue is to establish a
cap on overall drug expenditure and negotiate
with all partners within the industry. We need to
establish fully transparent rules, and there needs
to be assurance from the state that they will
comply.
Professor Gouveia Pinto notes that “although
SiNATS allows for disinvestment, and there is a
specific law on that, the concrete way this will be
put forward is not clear”.
Building a better information and
decision-making infrastructure
As it looks to implement this more evidence-
based approach to assessing new technologies,
Portugal can make use of a “rich information
infrastructure” that is significantly more
expansive across its healthcare system than is
the case in other countries. This includes not
only disease registers and electronic patient
identifiers but also the Portuguese Health Data
Platform, including a patient, professional and
institutional portal.26
In 2003, as part of efforts to ensure a high-
quality primary-care service, the government
created a new regulatory body, the Health
Regulatory Agency (HRA). The agency focuses
on promoting patients’ rights through
providing quality-of-care indicators and other
information to allow for informed choice in the
selection of care providers; the regulation of
market failure, including fighting inequality in
access to healthcare; and the regulation of the
economic interaction between different parts
of the healthcare system through increased
competition.27
25
Ibid., p. 2.
26
Ibid., p. 21.
27
European Observatory
on Health Systems and
Policies, Health Systems in
Transition (HiT); profile of
Portugal.
11© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016
Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention
who think that the health system requires
fundamental change or even a complete revamp
fell to 54% in 2015, from 80% in 2002. This
compares with an average of 51% across the EU.28
Portugal will face the challenge of accelerating
reforms in the hospital sector to improve
outcomes further and to ensure that the funding
system is an incentive to increase health
outcomes. Moreover, it will have to perfect the
SiNATS initiative to ensure that an ongoing and
more comprehensive evaluation system for new
technologies does not hamper access for the
patients who need them. And finally, the link
between reimbursement decision and funding
allocation remains a challenge to be resolved.
In developing its system for evaluating and
authorising new technologies, Portugal has
taken into account cost-benefit analysis well
before many wealthier neighbouring countries.
Years of economic austerity and restrictions
imposed by the troika have forced the country
to find more innovative ways of getting the most
value out of this process.
In the course of experimentation, Portugal has
also implemented significant reforms in primary
healthcare and integrated care delivery, although
both of these areas are works in progress.
But there are positive signs from the reform
initiatives: according to OECD survey data,
the percentage of the Portuguese population
Conclusion
28
Portugal: Raising
Standards, p. 22.
While every effort has been taken to verify the
accuracy of this information, The Economist
Intelligence Unit Ltd. cannot accept any
responsibility or liability for reliance by any person
on this report or any of the information, opinions
or conclusions set out in this report.
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Value-based healthcare in Portugal

  • 1. SPONSORED BY: Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention A report from The Economist Intelligence Unit
  • 2. 1© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention Contents About this report 2 Introduction 3 Chapter 1: Evolution of a system in crisis 4 Chapter 2: The post-crisis era of reform 8 Conclusion 11
  • 3. 2 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention Value-based healthcare in Portugal: Necessity is the mother of invention is an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report, commissioned by Gilead Sciences. Value-based healthcare looks at health outcomes of treatment relative to cost. In this particular paper, The EIU examines the way in which the recent economic and financial crisis has shaped health technology assessment in Portugal; the role of the hospital sector as a decentralised power source; and promising initiatives in integrated care, family health units and a new process for the re-evaluation of health technologies. In November-December 2015 The EIU conducted three interviews with experts on value-based healthcare in Portugal. The insights from these in-depth interviews appear throughout the report. The EIU would like to thank the following individuals (listed alphabetically) for sharing their insight and experience:  Pedro Pita Barros, professor, Nova Business School in Lisbon  Ricardo Baptista Leite, former member of the Portuguese parliament  Carlos Gouveia Pinto, professor, Lisbon School of Economics and Management The EIU bears sole responsibility for the content of this report. The findings and views expressed in the report do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor. Andrea Chipman was the author of the report, and Martin Koehring was the editor. December 2015 About this report
  • 4. 3© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention Introduction Despite being one of the smaller and less affluent countries in the EU, Portugal has been ahead of many of its neighbours in making value measurement an active part of its health technology assessment (HTA) process. As one of the EU states most adversely affected by the global financial crisis of 2007-08, Portugal has also been forced to adapt to economic constraints that have, in turn, helped to frame the evolution of its approach to HTA. Portugal’s economy was guided by a demanding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the troika—the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund—between 2011 and 2014, which put the country under severe economic constraints, according to Ricardo Baptista Leite, a former member of the Portuguese parliament and an infectious-disease and public-health expert. With a health system that is financed primarily through general taxation and a population of just under 11m people, Portugal’s total (private and public) expenditure on healthcare reached 9.1% of GDP in 2013, according to the latest available OECD data. This is above the OECD average and was the 14th-highest level of spending as a share of GDP in the 34-member OECD in that year. However, in per-capita terms (at constant prices and assuming purchasing power parity), healthcare spending in Portugal ranked only 25th, with spending falling since 2011, when the MoU was introduced. “But despite the fact that the troika does a lot of lip service on value-based health, all of the measures applied to the Portuguese health system were merely financial,” Dr Leite says. “Of course, we complied with that, but we also had a clear view, and what we decided to do was to achieve not only financial solvency but also sustainability.” Efforts to increase efficiency and a greater emphasis on generic drugs have been counterbalanced by increasing consumption of healthcare, making it harder to rein in costs. Continued concerns about escalating healthcare costs, as well as the desire to get the most out of limited resources, have led to a series of reforms of the health system, including more integrated health delivery, greater autonomy for healthcare providers setting up their own primary health clinics and, most recently, an overhaul of the country’s HTA system. In addition to investing more in preventive healthcare, Dr Leite explains, “we have tried to shift the way we were financing not just hospitals, but also access to innovation. That has been a slower process, but we did achieve some important changes.” This paper will first look at the evolution of Portugal’s reimbursement and pricing system against the backdrop of the economic and financial crisis and will then examine the post- crisis era of reform.
  • 5. 4 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention Chapter 1: Evolution of a system in crisis1 Portugal’s health technology assessment (HTA) process has traditionally been limited to pharmaceutical products. However, one of the country’s newest reform initiatives aims to put medical devices through similar evaluations. The country is also unusual in the way in which responsibility for healthcare spending is arranged. Although the central administration of the health system, the Administração Central do Sistema de Saúde (ACSS), is charged with setting budgets, hospitals have significant power over the allocation of funding. A system of cost-sharing Portuguese healthcare is delivered through three co-existing and overlapping systems. One of these is universal, while the other two are characterised by more limited access. These systems encompass both private and public providers and different levels of cost-sharing. Portugal’s national health service, the Serviço Nacional de Saúde (SNS), has offered universal healthcare coverage since 1979 and is funded through general taxation. It includes a range of public and private providers. However, there is no comprehensive coverage for all services. Certain professions have access to special public and private insurance schemes known as “health sub-systems”, which provide comprehensive or partial coverage to between one-fifth and one- quarter of the population. The plans are financed through employee and employer contributions, including state contributions for those employed in the public sector.1 Finally, a further 10-20% are covered by private insurance funds or voluntary health insurance (VHI). The level of cost-sharing for healthcare is highest for pharmaceutical products, with reimbursement levels ranging from 0% to 100% and reduced co-payments by certain population groups, such as pensioners. Patients with conditions that have a major impact on quality of life, including cancer and some chronic diseases, are eligible for full reimbursement of essential or life-saving medication, such as insulin.2 Authorisation, regulation, distribution and surveillance of pharmaceuticals and medical devices are concentrated within the National Authority of Medicines and Health Products, the Autoridade Nacional do Medicamento e Produtos de Saúde, I.P. (INFARMED), which was established in 1993 as part of the Ministry of Health. INFARMED conducts HTAs and recommends reimbursement for pharmaceutical products only; as we will see in Chapter 2, reforms of the HTA system introduced in 2014 will allow it 1 Barros, PP, Machado, SR et al, “Portugal Health System Review”, Health Systems in Transition, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2011, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, p. xvi. 2 Ibid.
  • 6. 5© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention to undertake economic evaluations of both drugs and medical devices. INFARMED is responsible for both reimbursement decisions and the periodic re-evaluation of approved technologies based on a comparative efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness profile, a process that can lead to a change or reduction in price or the reimbursement rate as well as the removal from the list of reimbursable drugs. Decisions on whether to reimburse a drug are based on the type of disease and the specifics of the patient’s situation, including the severity of the disease or the importance of prolonging life. The agency began issuing guidelines for carrying out cost-effectiveness studies on drugs for sale in pharmacies as early as 1998, making it one of the first HTA agencies in Europe to do so.3 In 2006 this mandate was extended to hospital drugs. The outpatient list of approved medicines, which is updated monthly, includes more than 7,200 drugs, of which 4,300 are considered to be essential. Non-essential drugs are subject to substantial co-payments of between 31% and 85%.4 In the inpatient sector, for prescribing, drugs must be included in both the National Hospital Pharmaceutical Formulary and local hospital formularies; if this is not the case, prescribers must provide a justification for using the medicine in question. These requirements may result in access inequalities across hospitals and/ or regions. INFARMED has responsibility for determining the maximum manufacturer price of outpatient prescription medicines. The agency has used international reference pricing based on the average price in selected EU countries since 2003. Starting in 2007, it used prices from four countries—Spain, France, Italy and Greece. In 2015 these reference countries were changed to include France, Spain and Slovakia, with the average of the three used for the retail market and the lowest for hospital prices.5 International reference pricing is used for all drugs except generics. In the case of medicines for hospital use only, a similar combination of reference pricing and central reimbursement evaluation is used; however, once this reimbursement is approved, individual hospitals have the ability to review the use of a drug and establish a purchasing contract with the manufacturer. Central reimbursement decision is not followed by funding allocation to drugs. Hence hospitals are the budget holders of drugs. Hospitals are not permitted to purchase drugs or negotiate for their use if they have not been approved nationally for reimbursement. In 2007 the Portuguese parliament passed legislation introducing maximum prices, based on the lowest price of the basket of reference countries and budget controls for new drugs in public hospitals, requiring assessment of new drugs based on therapeutic added value and cost- effectiveness.6 Still, by 2008 Portugal’s pharmaceutical expenditure, not including hospital medicines, was around 2.1% of GDP, comparably higher than in many other OECD countries. Health budgeting in an age of austerity The government has regularly negotiated with pharmaceutical companies in an effort to reduce its overall spending. Since 1997 the industry has signed regular framework agreements with the ministries of health and finance committing to reforms, limits of expenditure and industry financial contributions. In 2014 the payback from the industry amounted to €160m (US$173m), and for 2015 it was agreed to be €180m.7 This represents over 7% of the total annual medicines bill (in retail prices). Moreover, the government has repeatedly introduced price cuts for medicines, including a 30% reduction for generics in 2008; a 6% mandatory discount in the retail price of all reimbursed drugs; a 7.5% reduction in biologics in 2010; and a cut in 1,400 branded drugs in 2013. 3 Ibid., p. 45. 4 Vogler S and Leopold C, “Access to essential medicines in Portugal”, commissioned by Health Action International Europe, July 2009, pp. 27 and 32. 5 Ministry of Health, Decreto-Lei n. 97/2015, June 1st 2015. Available at: http://www. portaldasaude.pt/NR/ rdonlyres/96677839- 3EB3-4ABF-B7E8- B9CDF2B43D3D/0/Decreto_ Lei97_2015_SiNATS.pdf 6 Barros et al, “Portugal Health System Review”, p. 45. 7 IMS, “ Portugal: Compromise Reached over Payback Agreement”, IMS Pharma Pricing & Reimbursement, January 2015, Vol. 20, No. 1, p. 18.
  • 7. 6 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention Under the agreement with the troika—the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund—reached in 2011, the government agreed to cap drug expenditure at 1.25% of GDP in 2012 and to around 1% of GDP in 2013 and 2014, according to Carlos Gouveia Pinto, a professor at the Lisbon School of Economics and Management. Portugal’s efforts to reform its drug pricing policy have contributed to significant reductions in pharmaceutical spending since 2010. Total expenditure on retail medicines in the Portuguese SNS stabilised at below €1.2bn annually between 2012 and 2014, down from more than €1.6bn in 2010.8 OECD data show that in Portugal per-capita pharmaceutical expenditure in real terms fell by an annual average of 6.8% during 2010-13, while sales remained relatively stable in the OECD on average over the same period.9 Generic drugs have been a key part of the focus on cost control in Portuguese pharmaceutical policy, which has combined both price reductions and an increase in reimbursement rates to provide incentives. The market share of generic medicines reached 22.6% of the total value of pharmaceutical market sales (at ex-factory prices) in Portugal in 2013—above countries such as Greece (15.1%) and Spain (18.5%), but below Italy (41.5%) and Poland (54.8%)— according to data from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).10 But while efforts to control expenditure have been more effective in the ambulatory sector, they have been less so in the hospital sector, according to Professor Gouveia Pinto. The hospital sector: A decentralised power source The hospital sector has traditionally had a significant amount of autonomy and been less subject to performance indicators than other parts of the Portuguese healthcare system. The finance ministry provides the health ministry with a global budget for the health service, which is allocated to individual institutions within the system, including public hospitals. The ministry introduced diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) gradually from 1997 to 2002. Since 2003 they have been used to establish total funding for SNS hospitals and inpatient care, accounting for 75-85% of public hospitals’ inpatient budget.11 The Portuguese authorities use DRGs to set hospital budgets, rather than to define payments for sequences of treatments. Because the DRG system requires the collection of data on an individual patient basis, the resulting improvement of available information helps hospitals to adjust their budgeting for case-mix and other factors specific to hospitals, thereby allowing resources to be allocated more evenly.12 The health service has invested in making clinical trials within hospitals part of its health strategy, allowing both engagement with the pharmaceutical industry and early access to new technologies for compassionate use. Yet the fact that hospital boards could negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies creates its own problems, Dr Leite notes. “Most of the time, for most pathologies, there are three or four first-line drugs, and this leads to regional disparities, which is bad for the SNS because it makes it difficult to negotiate on price volume,” he says. At the same time, he argues, hospital administrators are unwilling to relinquish this source of power. “A regional system would work better, as agencies could supervise one another and show they could compare prices.” Hospitals have been successful in some cases at negotiating further price discounts to the maximum price approved by the government, according to Pedro Pita Barros, an economics professor at Nova Business School in Lisbon. He adds that some hospitals have also managed 8 INFARMED and ACSS from presentation by João Almeida Lopes, president of the Portuguese Pharmaceutical Industry Association (APIFARMA), to Rethinking Pharma conference, 2015. 9 OECD, OECD Health Statistics 2015. 10 EFPIA, The Pharmaceutical Industry in Figures, Key Data 2015, p. 17. Available at: http://www.efpia.eu/ uploads/Figures_2015_ Key_data.pdf 11 Barros et al, “Portugal Health System Review”, pp. xvii, 70-71. 12 Ibid., p. 70.
  • 8. 7© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention to create consortia to achieve higher volumes to improve negotiations with pharmaceutical companies. Portugal has made efforts in recent years to reform the hospital sector and improve the quality of care, including through the introduction of new management models, payment systems and safety standards. As part of this process, hospitals have instituted a number of performance indicators that reflect access, quality, productivity and financing. The OECD praises the Portuguese approach to quality monitoring and improvement as “particularly sophisticated”, employing disease-specific registers and electronic patient records to help drive reforms.13 However, despite compiling extensive data on hospital activities and outcomes of care, Portugal has yet to significantly link financial incentives to the quality of hospital services— just 5% of hospital revenue is related to relevant performance indicators.14 In some specific cases the government has been trying to move away from the current global budgeting system to models in which hospitals are financed through contracts paid per patient. Dr Leite refers to the treatment of HIV, where hospitals are eligible for higher reimbursement rates if they improve patients’ health, such as keeping virus counts low and CD4 counts (which are an important part of the human immune system) high in HIV patients. “It’s an interesting example,” he says, “and it’s a model that needs to be perfected, but I believe it’s going in the right direction.” Yet problems persist with maintaining consistent clinical practices across the sector, the OECD points out, adding that Portuguese healthcare is still “over-reliant” on the hospital sector.15 13 “Portugal: Raising Standards,” OECD Reviews of Health Care Quality, May 27th 2015, p. 3. 14 Ibid., p. 33. 15 Ibid., pp. 14 and 19.
  • 9. 8 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention The impact of the global financial crisis and the particular restrictions introduced as a result of the troika negotiations with Portugal have provided the catalyst for a series of reforms, starting in 2010. In particular, hospitals were forced to present a strategy for reducing their expenditure, and healthcare providers were encouraged to deliver more integrated care. At the same time, the health ministry hired retired physicians to deal with a shortage of doctors and established a group for primary healthcare reform, along with a new governance model to shape the reforms.16 These policies have been underpinned by efforts to empower patients, including the greater use of websites and other ways of informing health consumers. More recently, the government has undertaken an ambitious plan to overhaul its system of conducting HTA. Integrated care Compared with many of its European neighbours, Portugal has been in the vanguard of OECD countries in introducing a more integrated delivery of healthcare services. The government began to develop integrated care pathways to deal with an ageing population and increasing rates of chronic illnesses in 2008, publishing its new guidelines in 2013. The pathways involve co-ordinating medical and nursing services in hospitals, primary healthcare and long-term care.17 As part of this process, the government has set up integrated disease management programmes, characterised by a balance between incentives and sanctions to improve care for conditions such as obesity, chronic renal disease and pulmonary hypertension.18 “The integrated approach won’t be applicable to everyone, but if it is a disease with high prevalence or high impact on the budget, it may make sense to have a programme integrating all services and to make sure the financing system isn’t funding administrative procedures,” notes Dr Leite. The approach is especially important for diseases such as diabetes, which still has a 13% prevalence in Portugal, significantly higher than the OECD average, he adds. It remains difficult, however, to draw a conclusion at this point about whether the integrated care structure has led to improved outcomes for patients, according to Professor Pita Barros. “Partial evaluations seem to point to not much difference in outcomes and in outputs, although a more comprehensive review is required in my view, and care needs to be taken to compare Chapter 2: The post-crisis era of reform2 16 Ibid., pp. 17ff. 17 Ibid., p. 14. 18 Ibid., p. 19.
  • 10. 9© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention appropriately,” he says. This is in part because a focus on patient outcomes is still not as widely accepted within the system, he adds. Family health units Portugal has traditionally placed a high priority on specialist hospital care, but the health system has suffered from a relatively low number of general practitioners (GPs) compared with other countries. At the same time, the health service restricts access to specialist care, with GPs playing the role of gatekeepers, leading many to bypass their local surgery and visit emergency departments.19 Recent healthcare reforms have attempted to correct this and to improve efficiency gains in healthcare delivery.20 In particular, there has been an effort to look more closely at efficiency and outcomes in the primary-care system, which is currently dominated by two different models: primary healthcare units (PHCUs) and family health units (FHUs). PHCUs, the traditional form of primary-care delivery in Portugal, operate under a chain of command with decisions made by regional health administrators and healthcare professionals employed as civil servants. In 2007 the government established a newer model— family health units—with the aim of increasing co-ordination between multidisciplinary providers, giving GPs and primary-care nurses greater flexibility and bringing GPs closer to patients. FHUs generally comprise between three and eight GPs and a similar number of family nurses, who are invited to volunteer to form their own partnership groups to deliver primary care together. There are a number of other differences between FHUs and PHCUs. Acute cases are treated in separate GP-staffed facilities in some PHCUs, while FHUs treat acute cases during the GPs’ normal working hours. PHCUs only handle medical consultations, while FHUs also offer regular appointments with nurses.21 Under the system FHU teams receive performance- related payments that reward accessibility and quality, including their success in controlling hypertension, avoiding diabetic complications in patients or other health indicators.22 The OECD notes that the reforms “have been successful in improving accessibility, efficiency, quality and continuity of care, as well as increasing the satisfaction of both professionals and citizens”.23 However, challenges remain. According to the OECD, FHUs appear to consistently outperform PHCUs, so that parts of the population have higher-quality access to care than others. The OECD argues that the government could do more to encourage traditional PHCUs to transform themselves into FHUs, including by introducing incentives.24 This is particularly crucial in view of the impending shortage of GPs as many retire, and given the potential gains to be reaped from developing the role of the family nurse. Now we have to really consider how to motivate those who are not yet interested in moving into the new system because the evidence is so clear,” Dr Leite says, calling the programme a “real-life clinical trial in austerity times”. SiNATS: A continuous process of evaluation The most notable recent reform to the Portuguese health system has been the introduction of a new national system of health technology assessment, the Sistema Nacional de Avaliação de Tecnologias de Saúde (SiNATS), as part of INFARMED in 2014. Previously, as we have seen, INFARMED used HTA to help determine pricing and reimbursement of medicines as well as to control expenditure, using both relative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness measures. SiNATS extends the evaluation system to all types of technologies, starting with medical devices, and gives priority to contract-based financing agreements with manufacturers. The evaluation process is expected to look at the feasibility of risk-sharing agreements and the need for additional monitoring of medicines. Under the 19 Ibid., p. 99. 20 Barros et al, “Portugal Health System Review”, p. xviii. 21 Portugal: Raising Standards, p. 25. 22 Ibid., p. 19. 23 Ibid., p. 14. 24 Ibid., p. 25.
  • 11. 10 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention more formal contract system, pharmaceutical companies will be required to pay back the excess if they exceed budget projections, and cost- effectiveness is calculated both pre- and post- marketing. The most crucial change brought in by the new initiative is that HTA will now be used to help to re-evaluate the health technologies that are already authorised and funded by the national health service. SiNATS will reassess existing technologies in comparison with alternatives, using both manufacturers’ information and data on patient outcomes from national registries of patients treated on the SNS for conditions such as cancer and HIV/AIDS.25 “The idea is to have a continuous process of evaluation,” Professor Gouveia Pinto says. One key issue that SiNATS seeks to solve is the existing flawed reimbursement model, which tends to be inconsistent and political, according to Dr Leite. “The truth is that, at the end of the day, since the model isn’t as perfect as we would like it to be, the question is whether the state will reimburse the drug despite the fact that it passed the HTA challenge,” he says. Consequently, SiNATS seeks to ensure that the HTA process becomes more transparent and streamlined and that it involves a wider range of stakeholders, including patient associations. Professor Gouveia Pinto argues that the introduction of SiNATS was motivated by the government’s belief that the regulation of hospital drug expenditure was ineffective. “While doctors agree more with systems of efficiency, SiNATS is taking into account results, not just cost-containment,” he observes. The creation of SiNATS and its new evaluation procedures have the potential to create additional delays to decisions about new technologies, especially during the pricing and reimbursement process. This challenge is expected to have a greater impact on branded hospital medicines, such as those for cancer and rare diseases, although INFARMED has said that it is looking into providing a route for accelerated access to innovative medicines that appear to be promising. One key factor that will determine the success of SiNATS is its ability to be ruthless about taking technologies whose efficacy is no longer supported by scientific evidence off the market, Dr Leite says. “The only way I think we are going to fix the reimbursement issue is to establish a cap on overall drug expenditure and negotiate with all partners within the industry. We need to establish fully transparent rules, and there needs to be assurance from the state that they will comply. Professor Gouveia Pinto notes that “although SiNATS allows for disinvestment, and there is a specific law on that, the concrete way this will be put forward is not clear”. Building a better information and decision-making infrastructure As it looks to implement this more evidence- based approach to assessing new technologies, Portugal can make use of a “rich information infrastructure” that is significantly more expansive across its healthcare system than is the case in other countries. This includes not only disease registers and electronic patient identifiers but also the Portuguese Health Data Platform, including a patient, professional and institutional portal.26 In 2003, as part of efforts to ensure a high- quality primary-care service, the government created a new regulatory body, the Health Regulatory Agency (HRA). The agency focuses on promoting patients’ rights through providing quality-of-care indicators and other information to allow for informed choice in the selection of care providers; the regulation of market failure, including fighting inequality in access to healthcare; and the regulation of the economic interaction between different parts of the healthcare system through increased competition.27 25 Ibid., p. 2. 26 Ibid., p. 21. 27 European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Health Systems in Transition (HiT); profile of Portugal.
  • 12. 11© The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2016 Value-based healthcare in Portugal Necessity is the mother of invention who think that the health system requires fundamental change or even a complete revamp fell to 54% in 2015, from 80% in 2002. This compares with an average of 51% across the EU.28 Portugal will face the challenge of accelerating reforms in the hospital sector to improve outcomes further and to ensure that the funding system is an incentive to increase health outcomes. Moreover, it will have to perfect the SiNATS initiative to ensure that an ongoing and more comprehensive evaluation system for new technologies does not hamper access for the patients who need them. And finally, the link between reimbursement decision and funding allocation remains a challenge to be resolved. In developing its system for evaluating and authorising new technologies, Portugal has taken into account cost-benefit analysis well before many wealthier neighbouring countries. Years of economic austerity and restrictions imposed by the troika have forced the country to find more innovative ways of getting the most value out of this process. In the course of experimentation, Portugal has also implemented significant reforms in primary healthcare and integrated care delivery, although both of these areas are works in progress. But there are positive signs from the reform initiatives: according to OECD survey data, the percentage of the Portuguese population Conclusion 28 Portugal: Raising Standards, p. 22.
  • 13. While every effort has been taken to verify the accuracy of this information, The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd. cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this report or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in this report.
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