GENERAL PRACTITIONERS AWARENESS ON MEDICINES COST AND FINANCING IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Author(s)
Catic T1, Martinovic I2, Avdagic L3
1ISPOR Bosnia and Herzegovina Chapter, Sarajevo, Bosnia, 2Bosnalijek JSC, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 3Faculty of Economics, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
OBJECTIVES: Public pharmaceutical spending in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) is constantly growing. Health Insurance Funds (HIF) are financing drugs prescribed in primary health care settings through reimbursement lists under the price that is set by governments. Reimbursed drugs are prescribed by general practitioners (GP) and often they are marked as “gate keepers” for rational drug utilization and drug budget control. Since there is no formal education in health economics and pharmacoeconomics in BH we have studied GPs awareness on cost of medicines and knowledge on reimbursement and pharmacoeconomics approaches in BH. METHODS: We have developed and conducted survey consisted of sixteen questions/statements related to prices and cost of medicines, reimbursement system and pharmacoeconomics knowledge. Five-level Liker scale was used to measure respondents level of agreement/disagreement. Survey was distributed to 450 GPs in four major cities in BH. Descriptive statistics was used to evaluate responses. RESULTS: Response rate was 99,0%. Majority of respondents were females (73,3%) and 47,3% are 30-40 years old. Majority of respondents are aware that generic drugs have lower prices and 56,5% discuss prices with patients prior to prescription. Even significant number of GPs agree that majority of patients need could be satisfied by drugs included into reimbursement lists, 39,1% disagree. Drugs wit price lower that 1,5EUR should not be reimbursed, and copayment should not exceed 2,5 EUR. GPs consider that members of Reimbursement board are not enough qualified. Even do majority of respondents show understanding of pharmacoeconomics concepts, 71,3% claim need for additional education in this field. CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that GPs are regularly follow up reimbursement list updates being aware on drug prices. In order to improve rational drug prescribing they are interested in additional education in pharmacoeconomcis.
Conference/Value in Health Info
2016-10, ISPOR Europe 2016, Vienna, Austria
Value in Health, Vol. 19, No. 7 (November 2016)
Code
PHP157
Topic
Health Policy & Regulatory
Topic Subcategory
Reimbursement & Access Policy
Disease
Multiple Diseases