The National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) on Sep. 3 held a workshop on advancing Health Technology Assessment (HTA) that gathered representatives from 12 countries and experts from the England’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, to explore future developments and how HTA could be leveraged to elevate healthcare services.

At the sidelines of the event, Minister of Health and Welfare (MOHW) Chiu Tai-yuan said that the Cabinet on Aug. 30 approved the National Health Insurance (NHI) global budget for 2025 and set the recommended low and high parameters for the 2025 global budget growth rate at 3.521% and 5.5%, with the global budget set to reach between NT$911.2 billion and NT$928.6 billion, exceeding NT$900 billion for the first time. Liu Yu-chuan, Chief of the MOHW’s Department of Social Insurance, said that the Cabinet’s growth parameters were submitted to the MHOW on Sep. 2 and will be forwarded to the National Health Insurance Committee’s (NHIC) consideration on Sep. 3.

NHIA Director General Shih Chung-liang said that expediting HTA is among the most challenging priorities at the NHIA, among other objectives including several reforms to drug price policy, such as allocating an earmark for conditional reimbursement of new drugs, increasing the budget for new drugs and medical technologies, and promoting parallel review of new drugs.

[2024-9-3/United Daily News]