Panel on cost-effectiveness in health and medicine recommendations: Identifying costs

The assignment of costs in a cost-effectiveness analysis is a complex and d isputed issue. The Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine was c onvened to discuss standards that could be applied across a range of areas of cost-effectiveness. Additionally, the Panel had a mandate to resolve som e controversial issues about the practice of cost-effectiveness that create d difficulty in making comparisons across studies. The Panel proposed these guidelines: (1) Do at least some of the analysis from a social perspective ; (2) Assign values to resources that reflect their opportunity costs; (3) Avoid zero counting of resources: (4) Avoid double counting of resources; ( 5) Make analyses only as exacting as necessary in a study. Difficulties in data collection were discussed. Among other questions considered by the pan el were how to assign a value to the patient's time and which productivity costs to include in a cost-effcctiveness analysis. With tools and suggestio ns from the Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine, the cost an alyst can report costs accurately and provide accurate comparisons of cost performance across states, trial modalities, or diseases.