Reorientation of the Austrian parent-child preventive care programme. Part VIII: Budget Impact Analysis

Research areas: Prevention and screening, Health economics

Duration: June 2011 - March 2012
Publication: HTA-Projektbericht Nr. 055:  http://eprints.hta.lbg.ac.at/949

Suggested by: Ministry of Health
Language: German

Background:
In part III of the project we identified which payers currently finance the parent child programmes and what the public expenditure is. Implementing an alternative programme has financial consequences for the different payers involved. Additionally, the programme will have wider economic consequences.

Aims of project:
Part VIII aims at analysing the financial consequences (budget impact) of implementing an alternative parent-child preventive care programme. We will specifically address the budget impact of health visiting services (part VI) and electronic implementation (part VII). Re-distribution potentials and cost-offsets will be taken into account.

Research questions:

• Which scenarios of preventive care programms and related mix of services (type of service, frequency, profession involved) are to be expected in comparison to the current service provision?
• Which costs will occur for which payers within a 5-year time horizon?
• Which changes in health status are to be expected and what will be the economic impact and the impact for public budgets?

Methods:

• Designing a framework (model) for the analysis based on parts I to VII
• Evaluating costs based on Austrian data on services, tariffs, income data, international experiences and assumptions (in cases where no data are available)

• Identifying resources that are required for the preventive care scenarios (e.g. services of different health care professionals, infrastructure, implementation)
• Identifying quantities of resource consumption (e.g. estimated hours of care)
• Valuing the resources (e.g. price per hour of midwife care)
• Calculating the total costs (in form of ranges) of scenearios addressed

Addressing uncertainty of parameters via sensitivity analyses

Time schedule/ milestones:

June - July 2011: Search for national and international cost data
June - September 2011: Developing a framework (model) for calculation
October - November 2011: Cost calculation and sensitivity analysis
December 2011: Writing report
January 2012: External review
February 2012: Final report