Background: Using traditional health technology assessment (HTA) outcome metrics, such as quality-adjusted life-years, to assess fertility treatments raises considerable methodological challenges because the objective of fertility treatments is to create new life rather than extend, save, or improve health-related quality of life.
Objective: The aim of this study was to develop a novel cost-benefit framework to assess value for money of publicly funded IVF treatment; to determine the number of cost-beneficial treatment cycles for women of different ages; and to perform an incremental cost-benefit analysis from a taxpayer perspective.
Methods: We developed a Markov model to determine the net monetary benefit (NMB) of IVF treatment by female age and number of cycles performed. IVF treatment outcomes were monetized using taxpayers' willingness-to-pay values derived from a discrete choice experiment (DCE). Using the current funding environment as the comparator, we performed an incremental analysis of only funding cost-beneficial cycles. Similar outputs to cost-effectiveness analyses were generated, including net-benefit acceptability curves and cost-benefit planes. We created an interactive online app to provide a detailed and transparent presentation of the results.
Results: The results suggest that at least five publicly funded IVF cycles are cost-beneficial in women aged <42 years. Cost-benefit planes suggest a strong taxpayer preference for restricting funding to cost-beneficial cycles over current funding arrangements in Australia from an economic perspective.
Conclusions: The provision of fertility treatment is valued highly by taxpayers. This novel cost-benefit method overcomes several challenges of conventional cost-effectiveness methods and provides an exemplar for incorporating DCE results into HTA. The results offer new evidence to inform discussions about treatment funding arrangements.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10014591 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fgwh.2023.971553 | DOI Listing |
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