French law: what about a reasoned reimbursement of serum vitamin D assays?
Geriatr Psychol Neuropsychiatr Vieil. 2016 Nov 4. [Epub ahead of print]
There are many many more reasons for a vitamin D test
Supplementation is more important and lower cost that Testing to PREVENT diseases
See also Vitamin D Life
- VA showed increased vitamin D associated with lower health costs - Lancet May 2012
- Vitamin D test costs reimbursed in Japan – Aug 2016
- France restricts payments for Vitamin D tests – Dec 2015
- Vitamin D – whom to test and whom to treat – May 2015
- No vitamin D test needed before supplementing (typically) – April 2014
- 50,000 IU monthly safe to take without any vitamin D testing – RCT Dec 2013
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The number of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) assays has increased tenfold in France in less than 10 years, sometimes for invalidated reasons. In 2013, the French National Authority for Health (Haute autorité de santé, or HAS) limited the indications for serum 25OHD measurements to
- rickets/osteomalacia,
- older adults with recurrent falls,
- monitoring of kidney transplant in adults, and
- surgical treatment of obesity in adults.
Our aim here was to note that other indications for serum 25OHD measurements are supported by previous literature and by a number of national and international recommendations, in particular the following:
- any situation of bone fragility,
- any chronic renal failure <45 mL/min/1.73m2,
- any situation of malabsorption,
- clinical signs consistent with vitamin D deficiency or vitamin D overload, and
- calcium phosphorus evaluation.
We suggest that the measurement of serum 25OHD concentration should remain reimbursed as part of these extended indications.
PMID: 27818369 DOI: 10.1684/pnv.2016.0631 (DOI did not work in early Nov 2016)