Evidence on the effectiveness of policies promoting price transparency - A systematic review

Abstract

Policies promoting price transparency may be an important approach to control medicine prices and achieve better access to medicines. As part of a wider review, we aimed to systematically determine whether policies promoting price transparency are effective in managing the prices of pharmaceutical products. We searched for studies published between January 1, 2004 and October 10, 2019, comparing policies promoting price transparency against other interventions or a counterfactual. Eligible study designs included randomized trials, and non-randomized or quasi-experimental studies such as interrupted time-series (ITS), repeated measures (RM), and controlled before-after studies. Studies were eligible if they included at least one of the following outcomes: price (or expenditure as a proxy for price and volume), volume, availability or affordability of pharmaceutical products. The quality of the evidence was assessed using the GRADE methodology. A total of 32011 records were retrieved, two of which were eligible for inclusion. Although based on evidence from a single study, public disclosure of medicine prices may be effective in reducing prices of medicines short-term, with benefits possibly sustained long-term. Evidence on the impact of a cost-feedback approach to prescribers was inconclusive. No evidence was found for impact on the outcomes volume, availability or affordability. The overall lack of evidence on policies promoting price transparency is a clear call for further research.

Keywords: Medicine prices; Price transparency; Pricing policy; Systematic review.

Fig. 1

Definition of the policy intervention.

Fig. 2

Flow chart of study selection. The number of articles identified through database searching and screening by title and abstract shown in grey apply to the overall search; as per protocol the database search included search terms for all ten specific pricing policies among which policies promoting price transparency was one. The lower part of the flow chart shown in white is specific to the selection of studies on policies promoting price transparency. WoS=Web of Science. *Two articles are part of the same study, but were published separately. These references are considered one study.