Costos de tratamiento / Diferencias según 10 países.

.

BACKGROUND: Managing expenditures on pharmaceuticals is important for health systems to sustain universal access to necessary medicines. We sought to estimate the size and sources of differences in expenditures on primary care medications among high-income countries with universal health care systems.

  

METHODS: We compared data on the 2015 volume and cost per day of primary care prescription drug therapies purchased in 10 high-income countries with various systems of universal health care coverage (7 from Europe, in addition to Australia, Canada and New Zealand). We measured total per capita expenditure on 6 categories of primary care prescription drugs: hypertension treatments, pain medications, lipid-lowering medicines, noninsulin diabetes treatments, gastrointestinal preparations and antidepressants. We quantified the contributions of 5 drivers of the observed differences in per capita expenditures. 

 Click sobre imagen para ampliar

Across 10 high-income countries with universal health care systems, the average expenditure per capita on 6 of the largest categories of primary care medicines varied by more than 600%. The volume of therapies purchased varied by only 41%, which meant that most of the differences in average expenditure per capita were driven by differences in the average mix of drugs selected within therapeutic categories and differences in the prices paid for medicines prescribed. In New Zealand, estimated costs per day of therapy were about one-third the level in comparator countries; in Switzerland, estimated costs per day were nearly double the level in comparator countries. (...)

Conclusion Substantial international differences in average expenditures on primary care medications are driven primarily by factors that contribute to the average daily cost of therapy, rather than differences in the volume of therapy used. Average expenditures are lower among single-payer financing systems, which appear to promote lower prices and selection of lower-cost treatment options within therapeutic categories.(Más)