China has decided to collect high-value medical consumables such as dental implants

Wen 丨 "Late Finance" Gong Fangyi

China's oral disease rate is high, there are many patients, running out of the orthodontics, dental implants such as the scale of tens of billions, an annual increase of more than 30%. And because it is not covered by medical insurance, the industry competition is relatively more market-oriented, and the profit margin and scale are very high.

But such momentum could be paused. China has decided to further increase the category of collection and procurement, adding high-value medical consumables such as implant dental implants and orthopedic consumables to the catalogue of centralized procurement.

"Orthopedic consumables, drug balloons, dental implants, etc. that are of concern to the masses are collected at the national and provincial levels," the State Council said at an executive meeting held on the 10th.

Teeth have crowns, enamel, roots and periodontal membranes, etc., which can be destroyed by oral diseases. Dental implants replace the tissue at the root of the tooth with a base, implant, and other substances that are compatible with human tissues (such as titanium) and implant the jawbone. After two or three months, they are combined with the jawbone, and then the crown, bridge or denture are placed to make the system achieve a similar repair effect to the natural tooth and restore the chewing function.

Implants mainly rely on imports, but also test the doctor's implant technology, dental implants can be charged more than 20,000 yuan. However, the repair effect is close to that of natural teeth, and the implant success rate is high, so the market is constantly expanding. The agency forecasts 4 million new dental implants in China in 2020.

In August last year, the zhejiang medical insurance bureau's document "On Further Clarifying the Plan for Paying for Dental Implants in Medical Insurance Accounts over the Years (Draft for Comments)" was circulated in the market, which was considered to be a harbinger of the Medical Insurance Bureau's collection of dental implants.

A month later, the National Medical Insurance Bureau said that the provinces and cities "glasses, dentures, prosthetics and other appliances are not included in the scope of basic medical insurance payment", and some investment institutions believe that dentistry will not be collected in the short term. However, at that time, the National Medical Insurance Bureau also considered "promoting the payment of high-priced consumables such as implants into some areas with strong payment capacity" for medical insurance.

According to a report by Caijing this month, Sichuan has completed the declaration of product information and the reporting of the historical use of hospitals for dental implants, which reported that the industry believes that the collection of dental implants is "getting closer and closer".

Since 2018, China has completed six rounds of drug and consumable collection, and the average price of products included in the collection catalogue in each round has been reduced by about 50%.

The collection of consumables began in 2020, and the average price of the ten winning varieties dropped from 13,000 yuan to 700 yuan, a decrease of 93%.

Last year, China collected artificial joints nationwide, and the average price of products from 44 selected companies fell by about 80%. During the period, some local medical insurance bureaus collected orthopedic consumables, intraocular lenses, coronary balloons and other categories. "Securities Times" reported that in 2020, the seven cities in Shandong province jointly collected orthopedic consumables, and the related items fell by up to more than 90%.

However, in 2020, a study jointly carried out by eight institutions and universities, including the Shanghai Health Commission and Peking University, found that while saving patients hundreds of billions of yuan in treatment costs, medical insurance collection also brought incidental problems such as "exclusive bidding has caused some of the bidding enterprises to face supply and quality control pressure, and the risk of drug quality has increased", "the lowest price winning bid has led to low profit operation of enterprises, and continuous quality improvement has been greatly affected", "enterprises are cautious about the consistency evaluation of generic drugs, and the attractiveness of industrial investment has declined".