HEALTH & SCIENCE

IOM highlights financing needs: More vaccines, higher cost

Recent vaccine shortages and increased prices are sparking concern in the public health community.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Aug. 25, 2003.

Washington -- A new report by the Institute of Medicine provides several recommendations designed to place vaccine funding on more stable ground -- thereby easing the financial burden that can fall on physicians and helping to ensure the continued availability of vaccines.

The report, "Financing Vaccines in the 21st Century: Assuring Access and Availability," calls on the federal government to require all insurers, public and private, to cover immunizations. It also asks that the federal government subsidize health plans and physicians for the purchase and administration fees associated with this mandate and provide vaccine vouchers to individuals without insurance so their physicians and others can be reimbursed for the expense of providing the vaccine.

"Immunizations against common, dangerous diseases convey valuable health and social benefits, but the higher prices of newly developed vaccines and the outmoded system by which they are financed create significant financial burdens on health plans, consumers, health providers and vaccine makers," said IOM committee chair Frank Sloan, PhD, professor of health policy, management and economics at Duke University in Durham, N.C. The recommendations were released during an Aug. 4 news briefing.

Vaccines are the most cost-effective weapons to fight many infectious diseases, yet the availability of vaccines has been undermined in recent years by widespread shortages, and sharp price increases for newer vaccines have strained the budgets of purchasers.

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