Medical devices are not the cause of price variations in hospital care across the U.S., but rather are a part of the solution, according to medical device industry lobbying group AdvaMed.
“It is really clear in the evidence provided by these and other studies that medical devices are not the problem when it comes to rising healthcare costs. In fact, they’re a big part of the solution,” Biomet CEO & AdvaMed board member Jeff Binder said during a conference call today.
The prices of medical devices increased at a rate ¼ that of other medical goods and services during Medicare’s fiscal 2012 year, Binder said. In a study released today, the lobbying group said that the variation in charges for "device-intensive" procedures "was substantially less than the variation for other charges."
"The average difference between highest and lowest quartiles of hospital charges for the device-intensive admissions was 59 percentage points, while it was 72 percentage points for other admissions. In other words, while there was considerable variation in charges for both types of admissions, the variation was 22% greater for the admissions that were not device-intensive," according to AdvaMed.
A September study which tracked prices of implantable medical device procedures at more than 200 hospitals showed that prices steadily declined between 17% to 34% over 2007-2011, depending on the device.
The wide variation in charges is based on a series of complex factors. Binder, who has described reports that blame rising prices on medical devices as “erroneous,” pointed out that medical devices have more potential to help, rather than hurt.
“There are many instances in which improvements in medical devices have reduced the cost of procedures and the cost of care,” he said.
“If our prices had risen at the same rate as other prices in the medical area, costs would be much higher. We have in fact reduced what would be other, higher costs in the medical area,” AdvaMed senior executive vice president David Nexon added.