Implant Costs Drop as Hospitals Negotiate

Hospitals are paying about 16% less for one component of a hip implant than they did a year ago, according to Jaimy Lee writing for Modern Healthcare. The evidence that healthcare providers are negotiating lower prices for joint implants comes from the Modern Healthcare/ECRI Institute Technology Price Index.

Lee reports that the average price paid this summer for the implant’s acetabular shell—one of four parts of a hip implant—was $1, 220. That is about a quarter of the average price of a total hip implant.

Tim Browne, director of ECRI’s PriceGuide Service, told Lee that, “Hospitals are working collectively with physicians to reduce costs in physician preference areas, hips being one of these areas.” Faced with lower reimbursement rates, hospitals are seeking to lower costs by paying less for implantable devices.

Buyers are aided by the fact that there have been few technological advances made in implants in recent years. The last significant change in technology was the metal-on-metal hip implant which manufacturers believed would outlast those made with polyethylene. Jeremy Suggs, ECRI’s engineering manager for health devices, noted, “There haven’t been any real game changers in recent history.”

Lee noted that a further reason that price negotiations have shifted in favor of hospitals is because more and more surgeons are now employed by the hospitals. “In the past, ” she wrote, “hospitals often let physicians, who functioned more like independent contractors, purchase the implant of their choice regardless of price.”