Palliative care is not yet a well-defined product within the Dutch healthcare insurance system

In the Netherlands, the quality and availability of palliative care has improved markedly within the last decade. However, many open questions remain concerning the position of palliative care as an insurable product on the Dutch healthcare market. Therefore, we analysed the policies of all private Dutch healthcare insurance companies as well as the public insurance policy for extraordinary medical costs. We studied how and which parts of palliative care were reimbursed in 2007. We observed a huge variability in costs and reimbursement regulations reflecting a rapid turnover of products for palliative care due to various new developments on this specific field of medical care. We conclude that a better definition of the product 'palliative care' is necessary for patients, health care providers and insurance companies.Policy development Palliative care Healthcare insurance

Noninvasive techniques for probing neurocircuitry and treating illness: vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

Although the preceding chapters discuss much of the new knowledge of neurocircuitry of neuropsychiatric diseases, and an invasive approach to treatment, this chapter describes and reviews the noninvasive methods of testing circuit-based theories and treating neuropsychiatric diseases that do not involve implanting electrodes into the brain or on its surface. These techniques are transcranial magnetic stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation, and transcranial direct current stimulation. Two of these approaches have FDA approval as therapies