Modern Healthcare (02/03/12) Lee, Jaimy
Hospitals may end up paying more for some implantable medical devices due to physician influence on hospital purchasing, says a Feb. 3 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The office analyzed the prices that 31 hospitals paid for cardiac devices, discovering a "substantial variation" among prices paid. The analysts noted that physicians with strong device preferences could limit a hospital's ability to receive volume discounts. "The lack of price transparency for the [implantable medical devices] we examined makes it difficult to know whether hospitals are achieving the best device prices," the GAO report said. Hospitals usually accommodate physicians' device preferences, and without the data to compare the costs of certain devices, facilities cannot inform physicians on how their preferences impact pricing. Analyzing Medicare expenditures from 2004 to 2009, the GAO found that outpatient expenditures for implantable device procedures rose 24.1 percent annually, from $1.0 billion in 2004 to $2.9 billion in 2009.

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