MUMBAI: Medical device companies and hospitals need to display revised prices of cardiac stents on the homepage of their websites, along with details including brands and specifications. In yet another bid to monitor stent prices and curb profiteering, the government on Tuesday directed stent manufacturers, hospitals, cardiac centres and clinics to display the MRP, brands and companies along with prices at which the patient is billed, on their web-sites, in three days of the announcement, that is by March 3.<\/p>\n
The health ministry is also meeting chief secretaries of states and state drug controllers to sensitize them of the issue of overcharging for stents, and to keep a check on increase in cardiac procedure costs. Many hospitals are reportedly planning to increase “the package cost” as a result of price caps on stents, to make up for the loss in their margins. This comes in the wake of drug pricing regulator, NPPA capping the price of bare metal stents at Rs 7,260, while both drug-eluting stents and biodegradable stents at Rs 29,600.It also restricted the margins on stents for hospitals and distributors to curb profiteering, saying hospitals and distributors together have to share a total margin of 8% from the ceiling price of cardiac stents\u2014a steep drop from the margins before they came under price control. On receiving complaints of overcharging by certain hospitals, the government has taken a slew of measures to ensure patients are not overcharged, after the price caps were announced on cardiac stents earlier in February. Stents have been categorised as essential commodity under the Essential Commodities Act. Under this, any violation to defeat the objective of making cardiac stents affordable to people will be dealt with a firm hand, the NPPA had said. It also asked patients to report any overcharging or shortage to its 24×7 helpline, and on its mobile applications “Pharma Jan Samadhan” and “Pharma Sahi Daam.”<\/p>\n
After the government announced the price caps, stents had started disappearing from hospitals and clinics, and companies were reluctant to relabel them with revised MRP, as there was no clarity on mark-ups for hospitals and distributors. Margins have been the crux of the problem of exorbitantly-priced stents, touching nearly 650-900% in certain cases, with the bulk being pocketed by hospitals. The margin has been built into the calculation of the ceiling price and, except for local sales taxes or VAT, hospitals can’t levy additional charges over and above the ceiling price, NPPA had clarified, saying the margin also adequately covers any hospital handling charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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