If you had a life-threatening disease and were offered a choice of treatments, would you opt for a one-time cure or for weekly treatments for the rest of your life? The answer for most people is unsurprising: a cure. Cures eliminate the inconvenience of ongoing treatment, decrease caregiver burden, and reduce patient anxiety.
Although we want cures, how do payers, policy makers, and pharmaceutical manufacturers place a price on them?
J Clin Pathways.
Is trying to use the tools of economics to values cures useful, or–as Winston Wong writes–is cost-effectiveness modeling “not sensitive nor sophisticated enough” for curative therapies?
Read my full response– titled “How to Value Curative Therapies“–which was published in the Journal of Clinical Pathways today.