Ostrava hospital locked in negotiations with health insurance companies over new cyber knife

Following a modernization of its cancer treatment center, Ostrava University Hospital’s Oncology Clinic now boasts a very unique tool in cancer therapy –the cyber knife. Its purchase cost the university some 200 million Czech crowns, yet it currently cannot be used on Czech patients. The reason? The sum that Czech health insurance companies have offered to pay towards the treatment is much lower than what the hospital is asking for to cover its expenses, and both sides are still negotiating. Dr. David Feltl, the head of the oncology clinic, speaks about the state of the negotiations and what exactly a cyber knife is.

Cyber knife

“The cyber knife is a radio-therapy, robotic machine that delivers, ultra-precisely, very high doses of radiation, to very small volumes. So it’s the most precise radiotherapy machine in the world, actually.”

How long did it take to develop the cyber knife?

“It was a process, it was developed at the Stanford University in San Francisco and it took about twenty years, in the 1980s. And it was approved by the FDA in 1994 for treatment of the first patient at Stanford University.”

And then, how was the process of acquiring it for use in the Czech Republic, and at your hospital in Ostrava?

Cyber knife

“We made a project that took three-and-a-half years, so we started in January 2007, and the project has 650 pages, so it was quite extensive.

“And it included medical strategy, economic evaluation, marketing and so on, personnel strategy etc. And it took that long, three-and-a-half years, until the treatment of the first patient.”

And I understand that there was some sort of financial problem with bringing the cyber knife to Czech patients. Can you explain what happened?

David Feltl

“There were real extensive and long negotiations with health insurance companies about the price of the treatment. Because the price of the treatment in the world lies between 8000 and 13,000 USD per patient, and we got offered about a tenth of that sum, and we really couldn’t accept it. The negotiations are still running and we are quite optimistic that we will finish them this week.”