Breast Reconstruction Surgery in the Netherlands, an Alternative Payment Method for Breast Reconstruction Surgery. Are Extra Fees Feasible in the Context of Reconstructive Surgery?

Saeed Alqahtani, Mohammed Ahmedhani Kilani and Shahbaz Mansoor
Additional contact information
Saeed Alqahtani: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
Mohammed Ahmedhani Kilani: Saudi Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Saudi Arabia.
Shahbaz Mansoor: Department of General Surgery at Midland Regional Hospital Mullingar, Ireland.

European Journal of Medical and Health Sciences, 2020, vol. 2, issue 1

Abstract: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the Netherlands, and breast reconstruction is becoming a common surgical procedure for women who have had a mastectomy. Reconstruction post breast cancer treatment is covered by conditional reimbursement until 01-04-2020 as long as it as an autologous fat transplant. Conditional reimbursements are special legal exceptions under constant consideration by the Ministry of Health and require evidence on treatment and cost effectiveness to be moved to basic healthcare package. Surgeons at Maastricht UMC+ have developed sophisticated techniques for women that undergo a reconstruction surgery to recover sensitivity of the breasts. Improved sensitization would lead to a better quality of life and protect the skin against thermal and mechanical injuries. However, current health insurance coverage of breast reconstruction does not permit these additions. Furthermore, the reimbursement system in The Netherlands does not allow people to pay an extra fee for these additions.

Keywords: Breast reconstruction; Reimbursement system; Public Health Insurance; Netherlands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://eu-opensci.org/index.php/ejmed/article/view/40158 Abstract page (text/html)
https://eu-opensci.org/index.php/ejmed/article/download/40158/8844 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:epw:ejmed0:v:2:y:2020:i:1:id:40158

DOI: 10.24018/ejmed.2020.2.1.158

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Journal of Medical and Health Sciences from European Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Support ().