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BUSINESSNew stent pricey, yet a cost-saverWhile upfront expenditures may be high, studies have shown that the device helps prevent future procedures and expenses.By Mike Norbut, AMNews staff. May 19, 2003. When the Food and Drug Administration approved sales of the first drug-eluting stent last month, it opened the door for what could be a major step in the fight against heart disease and a debate over how the device will affect health care costs. While physicians will not see a change in reimbursement between procedures using the new stent or the old, bare-metal stent, many hospitals will see this as a losing proposition initially because the added reimbursement for the new device will not keep up with the additional cost. But physicians and analysts are hoping the device will be more cost-effective in the long term. Use of the drug-eluting stent today should mean fewer patients needing repeat angioplasties and shorter hospital stays in the future, they said. And as the market expands -- Johnson & Johnson has the first product to receive FDA approval, but Boston Scientific may receive approval for its version near the end of the year -- hospitals are hoping stent prices drop. Cordis Corp., a Johnson & Johnson company and the manufacturer of the CYPHER drug-eluting stent, has set the price for its new device at $3,195, nearly $2,000 more than its bare-metal version. Before the FDA even approved the device, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced it had created new codes with a reimbursement rate about $1,800 higher than its rate for a typical stenting procedure. But considering that the average procedure requires about 1.5 stents, using two drug-eluting stents could mean a loss of $1,000 or more per patient. [...]Full text of AMNews content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2003 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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