CONTEXT: One for the Health economists This article shows the actual monetary value of RWR and how it can improve access to important pre-natal screening tests | US only data.
IMPACT: Medium
READ TIME: 1 min
Quality Level Mean [1 – 10]: 8
1. “A new study by R. Brett McQueen, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, supports expanding coverage of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) to pregnant women less than 35 years of age.”
2. “R. Brett McQueen, PhD,. The study, published in PharmacoEconomics-Open evaluated the impact of an innovative risk-sharing agreement between biotechnology company Illumina, Inc. and insurer Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHH) that opened insurance coverage of NIPT, a simple maternal blood draw which screens for fetal chromosomal disorders including trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome), trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome), and trisomy 21 (Down is the first-ever published manuscript on a value-based agreement between a bio/medical technology company and a payer for NIPT coverage.”
3. ““Our findings show that expanding NIPT coverage to women under 35 increased NIPT use and modestly increased prenatal screening costs,” said McQueen.”
4. ““This study, and other efforts, highlight how payers can provide NIPT access to all pregnant women and produce better outcomes at about the same cost.””
5. “Given the results from this study, it’s likely that even more payers will follow suit and expand NIPT cover to women under 35.”