After drugs, medical devices have also become a frequent visitor to centralized procurement.
In July 2020, the Chinese National Medical Insurance Administration explored centralized volume procurement of high-value medical consumables. It included coronary stents as the first batch of centralized procurement medical consumables, the largest category of high-value consumables. The price of coronary stents dropped from an average of about 13,000 yuan to about 700 yuan, again setting off the industry.
In April 2021, the Chinese National Medical Insurance Administration and eight other departments issued the “Guiding Opinions on the National Organization of Centralized Volume Procurement and Use of High-value Medical Consumables”, marking that centralized volume procurement of high-value consumables will also become normalized, centralized procurement of medical consumables has become an unquestionable trend.
Similar to drugs, high-value consumables will also include those with large clinical usage, high procurement amounts, mature clinical use, sufficient market competition, and high homogeneity levels in the procurement scope. Today, the scope of volume procurement is expanding, covering orthopedic intervention, cardiac intervention, artificial lenses, and dental implants, and continues to advance into deep waters, with no restricted areas.
Some people once questioned that centralized procurement was a regression for China to the planned economy era.
And if you were a patient, would you support the centralized procurement of medicines? This is the biggest soul-searching question.
At least for patients, the answer is yes. Group purchasing gives all ordinary people the opportunity to live fairly and with dignity, especially those with hypertension, diabetes, tumors, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular, mental, and other diseases.
As a professional surgical instrument product solution provider, TECOLI will continue to bring you cutting-edge information in the medical industry.
For more cutting-edge information in the medical industry, product information, etc., please visit our website: www.tecolimedical.com.
