Stent pricing control: Will it really achieve what it is expected to?
As we all know that the government has very recently brought cardiac stents under the ambit of national list of essential medicines, with the intention of increasing the accessibility. At the outset, it does look like a good move wherein the decrease in price is expected to make it more affordable and hence more accessible, but lets look at it in details.
1) With the pricing cap, the market competitive forces are directly killed. Thereby, an inferior quality stent and a world-class quality stent, both can now be sold at the same price. Needless to say that the first variety would be able to give better margins and hence would be more frequently marketed and consumed. Point to remember here is that unlike a fair market place, Stent market lacks the transparency, and the end consumer is not the decision maker.
2) Product dumping: A very possible outcome would be the dumping of products from other markets.
3) Along with product dumping, the other scenario would be to reduce the overheads. A manufacturer located, say, in Bangalore, would limit his domestic sales to markets in the south (to reduce transport overheads), and would export the rest of the produce. (There goes the assumption of accessibility down the drain!!)
4) Needless to say, patented products won't be available for use. So that again reduces the accessibility to newer (and generally advanced) technology.
5) NPPA today has acted upon the order from the honourable courts, but what if, say, 6-7 years down the line, there is a totally newer variant of products, would the manufacturer run pillar to post to get it labelled as a separate variant. We all know how feasible that would be. Disincentive to research?? Disincentive to introduce newer variant in domestic markets??
Though I have no doubts about the intent of the move, I have serious doubts about the outcomes. I hope time proves me wrong, and we do get to have a better accessibility to stents (and cardiac care, in general).
Strategy & Consulting - Healthcare l Strategy & Operations l Army Veteran l Johns Hopkins l IIMA
7 年What if the hospitals increase the charge of putting the stent?? Govt doesnt have any law to control that or have a cap. On the contrary, Japanese healthcare system does have.
Healthcare, Hospital, Disability Support Services
7 年in my view and readings any good private hospital can do PTCA (angioplasty) package easily at Rs 35k inclusive of BMS & Less than 60k with DES with best quality stents........question is do we want to do
Healthcare, Hospital, Disability Support Services
7 年I deeply favour this move by government as it will curb the huge profit margins taken in solo by hospitals and few doctor's...I dispair the statement on poor quality vs good quality of DES as from the supply point of view event the best quality of DES is also available @ Rs 20k to 27k where the MRP or charging from the patient was as high as 80k to 1.10k....so 30k remains the fairbail price from patients point of view
Head Business Operations - VST Group - India Garage - Mahindra Cars
7 年I think the writer is overtly negative of the move !!! looks like the Medicine community would want affordable healthcare out of reach of common people!!! otherwise how one can support obscene profit margins when rest of the other industries operate approximately @30% margins ...
Stroke Neurologist &Neurointerventionist
7 年Government should also get prices for Neuro stents and thrombectomy devices used for Acute stroke therapies also under control . Priced many more times then the coronary stents