CNAM: care and treatment aboard in oncology

The Tunisian National Health Insurance Fund (TNHIF) has 186 practitioners and advisers (physicians, dentists and pharmacists) in the service of medical supervision. These advisers are distributed on three levels (regional, district and national). In the present paper we have discussed the CNAM support in the different types of oncology (FSD (Fully Supported Disorders), Hospitalization, the scans, the radiation therapy, specific drugs and treatment abroad). We begin by presenting expenditures by year and age group for FSD and hospitalization in the private and the public sectors. We then give the conventional packages for scans, radiotherapy: either for CLAM or CRAM. Daily benefits for the sickness leave and the disability will be presented briefly. Then we will give the administrative process for the approval of the commission for specific medication. The medical advice is based on certain criteria that will be explained in the paper. In certain cases definitive medical advice needs to call for the recommendation of a national commission and oncology or different experts. The spending trend of the TNHIF from 2001 to 2012 will be discussed. TNHIF generally considered Herceptin, Nexavar Erbitaux as the main drugs for targeted therapies. We present for the treatment cost and expenditure trends for the first drug from 2008 to 2012 as well as the estimation for 2013, which increases from one year to year. For the treatment with the second and the third drug we give the evolution of expenditure between 2010 and 2012. Cancer is a serious disease that requires a costly multidisciplinary support for the patients. This support has changed the prognosis survival (see cases of healing). The financial coverage of this support can never be supported by the family (whatever the wealth level) without any TNHIF support. The real gain in survival and expenditure control are closely related to awareness and early detection of the disease. TNHIF usually intervenes in the financing of care abroad as PET SCAN and nonfamily Allograft that we present the number attributed each year. We conclude with statistics on expenditures in cancer diseases: increased spending from one year to year (2010-2011), the number of cancer care abroad (2010-2011-2012) and at the end the number of PET tumour location. (Author)