Tariff Calculation

The tariff prices are calculated by the following process:

Pricing up the representative care pathways, we have currently over 100 care pathways described in detail, agreed by clinicians across England and by the appropriate professional bodies.  All pathways describe a 'contact' patient episode with the exception of the three STI Intervention currencies that represent a complete episode of care according the recognised best practice.  The STI Test pathways are designed  to cost the care up to the point of patient notification of a negative diagnosis and assume that only a certain proportion of patients receive a negative diagnosis.  The cost of positive diagnosis including the patient and partner notification costs are captured in the diagnosis pathways contained in the three STI Intervention currencies.

The pathways are then grouped into currencies that are clinically meaningful and where possible similarly priced.

The currency price is deduced by the weighted average price of the collection of pathways in each currency, the weightings being taken from a study detailed activity data taken from nine pilot sites across London.

Each currency is then subjected to a factor that represents the average number of times a pathway from that currency is triggered in a patient episode.  As each currency can only be triggered once in any patient episode, it is necessary to estimate the average number of pathways that are represented.  This is necessary because it is not possible to uniquely identify each instance of each and every pathway from within the patient level activity data so there is a need to make an estimation.  For example, a currency tariff might be factored by 1.5 indicating that on average 1.5 of the pathways from that currency are consumed in the average patient episode. 

The final currency price is then reduced by 1.5% cost saving measure implemented in 2012 by the Department of Health.