ABSTRACT
The Italian National Health Service (SSN) provides tax-funded comprehensive medical care to the entire population, essentially free of charge. The regional authorities are responsible to provide medical care; they have the freedom to provide care beyond the essential levels of care, but they must finance this from their own resources. Public and private hospitals are generally reimbursed on the basis of Diagnosis-Related Group (DRG) fees. Access to hospitals is free of charge to patients. The Italian Medicines Agency (Agencia Italiana del Farmaco (AIFA)) has a very broad range of responsibilities touching all healthcare and industry-related aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. Health economic evaluations in Italy have only limited impact on pricing and reimbursement decision making at a national level and are mainly included in dossiers at the initiative of pharmaceutical companies. Italy has been very active in adopting "risk sharing" deals for particularly oncology drugs.
