Hospitals push back as FDA flags high markups on hospital consumables
The healthcare body disagreed with the notion of levying a fixed markup on consumables, adding that hospitals should not be considered mere resellers of medical devices. Instead, Nathealth called for an evidence-based and differentiated framework that distinguishes basic consumables from clinically differentiated and high-complexity medical technologies.
Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Tukaram Munde has called for guidelines on the acceptable price difference between the cost of hospital consumables at the point of procurement and the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) declared by manufacturers and distributors. Munde emphasized that the pricing gap is a fundamental public health concern, as patients often have no insight into the true cost of medical consumables or any markups that may have been applied.
In a survey conducted in Maharashtra, it was revealed that the MRP for an IV infusion set was 2,841% higher than its trade price, while a syringe carried an MRP nearly nine times its procurement cost. The commissioner argued that the high markup is due to fixed pricing determined upstream by manufacturers and distributors, disconnected from the trade price by a wide, unexplained margin.
Most medical devices and consumables are not covered under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, leaving the pricing and associated information largely unmonitored.
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