Health Economics - Prof. Lieven Annemans | Ep. 5
Prof. Lieven Annemans — Health Economics Professor
Health economist Prof. Lieven Annemans on value for money in care: how a QALY is counted, why paying per service rewards sickness, and why the best fix for a health system is health.
Key Takeaways
A QALY is a unit of health
One year in perfect health is one QALY; ten years at half quality is five. It lets very different treatments be compared. 21:49
Neither money nor medicine alone
Thinking only clinically ignores that budgets are finite. Thinking only of cost is absurd: the dead cost nothing. 15:46
Fee-for-service rewards sickness
Paid per service, a provider earns more as patients get sicker. A fixed payment per patient rewards keeping them well. 29:56
The best fix for healthcare is health
Severe COVID fell hardest on people with obesity and diabetes. His lesson: invest in prevention from school age, not in more beds. 35:43
Keep the human in the room
He argues for hybrid care, monitoring at a distance plus real visits, and for AI as a peer that advises while people decide. 42:08
“If your only concern is the money, then you can let people die, they will not cost any money anymore.”
“AI is there to help us lead a better life, but we should not have our lives being led by AI.”
Chapters
- 0:00Intro1 min
- 0:36What health economics is3 min
- 3:56Cost-effectiveness explained2 min
- 6:24Advising the minister of health2 min
- 8:27How decisions get made5 min
- 13:21Clinicians and economists3 min
- 16:42Patients at the table4 min
- 21:03What a QALY is3 min
- 24:30What a QALY misses4 min
- 28:37Fee-for-service or paying for value6 min
- 34:25The lesson of COVID-192 min
- 36:06Prevention starts in childhood5 min
- 40:40Telemedicine and hybrid care4 min
- 45:09Medicine as an art3 min
- 47:41Genetics and epigenetics4 min
- 51:36Becoming a health economist3 min
- 54:43Housing and health5 min
- 1:00:12AI as a peer, not a boss5 min
- 1:05:40Healthcare in ten years2 min
Mentioned in This Episode
About this Guest
Prof. Lieven Annemans
Health Economics Professor
Past-President of ISPOR and former advisor to the Belgian Minister of Health. He has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers and four books on health economics.