Pharmaceutical policies: effects of reference pricing, other pricing, and purchasing policies

Abstract

Pharmaceuticals can be important for people's health. At the same time drugs are major components of health care costs. Pharmaceutical pricing and purchasing policies are used to determine or affect the prices that are paid for drugs. Examples are price controls, maximum prices, price negotiations, reference pricing, index pricing and volume‐based pricing policies. The essence of reference pricing is to establish a maximum level of reimbursement for a group of drugs assumed to be therapeutically equivalent. To determine the effects of pharmaceutical pricing and purchasing policies on drug use, healthcare utilisation, health outcomes and costs (expenditures). We searched the following databases and web sites: Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group Register (date of last search: 22/08/03), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (15/10/03), MEDLINE (07/09/05), EMBASE (07/09/05), ISI Web of Science (08/09/05), CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (21/10/03), EconLit (23/10/03), SIGLE (12/11/03), INRUD (21/11/03), PAIS International (23/03/04), International Political Science Abstracts (09/01/04), NHS EED (20/02/04), PubMed (25/02/04), NTIS (03/03/04), IPA (22/04/04), OECD Publications & Documents (30/08/05), SourceOECD (30/08/05), World Bank Documents & Reports (30/08/05), World Bank e‐Library (04/05/05), JOLIS (22/08/05), Global Jolis (22/08/05 and 23/08/05), WHOLIS (29/08/05). Policies in this review were defined as laws, rules, financial and administrative orders made by governments, non‐government organisations or private insurers. To be included a study had to include an objective measure of at least one of the following outcomes: drug use, healthcare utilisation, health outcomes, and costs (expenditures); the study must be a randomised controlled trial, non‐randomised controlled trial, interrupted time series analysis, repeated measures study or controlled before‐after study of a pharmaceutical pricing or purchasing policy for a large jurisdiction or system of care. Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed study limitations. Quantitative analysis of time series data, for studies with sufficient data, and qualitative analyses were undertaken. We included 10 studies of reference pricing and one study of index pricing. Most of the reference pricing studies were for senior citizens in British Columbia, Canada. The use (dispensing) of reference drugs increased in five studies, between 60% and 196% immediately after introduction of reference drug pricing, whereas the use of cost sharing drugs decreased by between 19% and 42% in four studies. In three studies the reference drug group expenditures decreased (range 19% ‐ 50%), whereas in the fourth study the expenditures increased by 5% in the short term. The results after six months of reference pricing do not show any clear pattern in relationship to the immediate effects. We found no evidence of adverse effects on health and no clear evidence of increased health care utilisation. For index pricing the evidence was much more limited than for reference drug pricing. A small reduction in drug prices was found. We found relatively few studies of pricing policies. The majority of the studies dealt with reference pricing. They had few methodological limitations. Based on the evidence in this review, mostly from senior citizens in British Columbia, Canada, reference drug pricing can reduce third party drug expenditures by inducing a shift in drug use towards less expensive drugs. We found no evidence of adverse effects on health and no clear evidence of increased health care utilisation. The analysis and reporting of the effects on patient drug expenditures were limited in the included studies and administration costs were not reported. 藥物政策：參考價，其他定價，與採購政策的影響 藥物對於民眾的健康是很重要的。同時藥物也是健康照護成本中主要的費用。藥物定價與採購政策被用來決定或影響給付藥物的價格。實例為價格控制，最高價格，價格談判，參考價，指標價與以數量為準的定價政策。參考價的重點就是建立一個償付具有相同療效的一組藥物的最大水準。 確定藥物定價與採購政策對於藥物使用，健康照護利用，健康結果與成本(花費)的效果。 我們檢索以下的資料庫與網站：Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group Register (最後一次檢索的日期: 22/08/03)，Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (15/10/03)，MEDLINE (07/09/05)，EMBASE (07/09/05)，ISI Web of Science (08/09/05)，CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (21/10/03)，EconLit (23/10/03)，SIGLE (12/11/03)，INRUD (21/11/03)，PAIS International (23/03/04)，International Political Science Abstracts (09/01/04)，NHS EED (20/02/04)，PubMed (25/02/04)，NTIS (03/03/04)，IPA (22/04/04)，OECD Publications & Documents (30/08/05)，SourceOECD (30/08/05)，World Bank Documents & Reports (30/08/05)，World Bank eLibrary (04/05/05)，JOLIS (22/08/05)，Global Jolis (22/08/05 與23/08/05)，WHOLIS (29/08/05)。 這篇回顧中的政策被定義為由政府，非政府組織或私人保險提供者訂定的法律，規定，財務與管理的命令。納入的研究必須包括至少下列客觀測量的結果：藥物使用，健康照護利用，健康結果，與成本(費用)；研究必須是關於大範圍或照護系統的藥物定價或採購政策的隨機對照試驗，間斷時間序列分析，重複測量研究或前後對照研究。 兩名回顧作者分別摘錄資料並評估研究限制。由於研究有足夠的資料，因此進行時間序列資料的量性分析與質性分析。...