In a new Reality Check-Up insight, Director of Health Care Policy Michael Baker explains that health technology assessments (HTAs) in single-payer systems, while intended to guide fair and cost-effective care, often create more problems than they solve.

Key points:

• HTAs are evaluations used by health care payers to determine the value of various health technologies and interventions such as treatment protocols, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices.
• These assessments are reductive determinations of whether a patient’s prescribed medical intervention is of acceptable value from an average, generalized standpoint.
• In single-payer systems, where coverage decisions are binding and alternatives limited, the harm posed by the reductive use of HTAs can be life-threatening; for patients facing serious illness, for example, HTAs can create an unnecessary barrier to care rather than the intended safeguard of fairness.

Read the analysis.