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HSCA President Curtis Rooney recently contributed a piece to the Journal of Healthcare Contracting titled, “Left to Their Own Devices.” The article focuses on the recent GAO report, titled “Lack of Price Transparency May Hamper Hospitals’ Ability to Be Prudent Purchasers of Implantable Medical Devices,” which addresses medical device “gag clauses” and how they artificially drive up healthcare costs, “leaving hospitals, patients, Medicare and American taxpayers to foot the bill.”
Rooney clearly explains the "gag clause" ripple effect, noting that these agreements “prevent hospitals from sharing their own data and validating that they are receiving a fair price on the products they buy. Contracts between manufacturers and hospitals often forbid disclosure of prices, even to doctors, which makes it difficult to get physicians the information they need to consider cost when making decisions about devices. As a result, some hospitals unnecessarily pay thousands of dollars more than others for high-cost medical devices such as defibrillators, stents and hip replacements…. impeding the ability of hospitals and GPOs to lower costs and achieve private sector cost containment.”
Rooney goes on to discuss the increased burden on rural facilities, physician-manufacturer relationships, and how the device industry has been able to drive the continuation of this “unfair and unsustainable” practice.