During the latest discussions on the Rapid Prototyping mailing list on
medical modeling the subject of reimbursement came up several times.
Already service bureaus in the United States succeed in getting
reimbursement for medical models. However it is still up to the local
representative of a insurance company to grant reimbursement or not.
In Europe the issue of cost effectiveness has been addressed in the
Phidias Project, which was a study performed by Materialise, Siemens,
Zeneca and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. One of the objectives of
the study was to measure the effect on the medical endresult, number of
surgical interventions, costs etc. The information derived from this
project has been bundled in a information package on medical modeling.
The package consists out of 51 slides showing the use of medical models
in surgical interventions and a summary of the results of the Phidias
Project. The questionnaire sent to the surgeons using the models has been
included. Also included is the CT-Modeling System software from
Materialise, which can be evaluated for 30 days. The information package
can be ordered by sending a check for $245, the check should be payable
to Materialise USA and send to the address below.
In general medical studies done outside the US are not recognized for
reimbursement issues in the US.
Also we dont believe that an effort done by individual companies will
lead to the satisfying outcome which this technology deserves. During the
workshop on Medical Applications at The Seventh International Conference
on Rapid Prototyping (March 31 - April 3 1997) the experiences from the
Phidias project will be used to set up a similar study in the US. It is
therefore that we invite companies and universities involved in any
aspect of medical modeling to step forward and participate in this
workshop.
During the workshop an overview of the Phidias project and talks on FDA
and reimbursement issues will be given. Case studies of usage of medical
models will be on display as well.
If You want to present at the workshop, contact Bart Swaelens at:
bart@materialise.be
To register for the conference and workshop, contact the University
of Dayton directly if you did not receive registration forms yet.
Mark Bliek 7th Int. Conference on Rapid Prototyping
Materialise USA March 31 - April 3, 1997
6111 Jackson Road San Francisco, CA
Ann Arbor, MI 48103 University of Dayton/Stanford University
ph. (313) 662 5057 Mukesh Agarwala, Ph.D.
fax (313) 662 7891 ph (937) 229 3965
e-mail: info@materialise.com fax (937) 229 3433
http://www.materialise.com http://www.udri.udayton.edu/conf/rapidpro
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