How is the cardiac stent being used after the price reduction? What has been the experience for users?

More people can afford to use these heart stents after the price cut. In January, the first batch of reduced-price cardiac stents entered public hospitals, and the stents have been in use for more than a month. It is reported that the current collection of cardiac stents have all landed in public hospitals around the country, and to achieve the full coverage of the country. Earlier cardiac stents through the collection and procurement after the price reduction of more than 90%, originally to more than 10,000 stents, now as long as 700 yuan or so, and there are a number of local medical insurance has begun to try to hemodialysis and orthopedic trauma class of consumables into the centralized list. Some doctors said that the price reduction of cardiac stents, the impact on patients is the biggest, the financial burden is reduced, many patients who previously chose conservative treatment, also began to try cardiac stents.

Other front-line doctors said that in the past, it took a long time to treat some heart disease patients to persuade them to use cardiac stents, and many of them were delayed because of financial problems. But now, after the price cuts, heart stents are clearly more acceptable. And on the other hand, for the health insurance fund, the burden has been reduced a lot, in the past, this kind of consumables to the health insurance fund has caused a small burden, now after the collection and procurement, is expected to reduce the price of a year to save the health insurance fund of tens of billions of dollars, and these savings, and can go back to increase the new health insurance drug catalog, in the long run, the benefit of the patients.

And the doctors involved in the health insurance negotiations also said that the collection is completely price cuts do not reduce the amount of collection of objects are also influential big brands and companies, the regulatory unit of the relevant product inspection efforts have also been enhanced to ensure that companies will not appear to cut corners.

Reference:

Cardiac stent (Stent), also known as coronary stent, is a commonly used medical device in cardiac interventional surgery, with the role of dredging the arterial blood vessels. The main materials are stainless steel, nickel-titanium alloy or cobalt-chromium alloy. It first appeared in the 1980s, and has undergone the development of metal stents, drug-coated stents, and bioabsorbable stents. [1-2]?

On November 5, 2020, the first round of state-organized centralized banded purchasing of high-value medical consumables carried out by China officially opened the bidding in Tianjin, and 10 products from eight companies such as Easthon Technology, Shanghai Wicresoft Medical and Lepu Medical were proposed to be selected, and the price of coronary stents will drop from the previous average price of about 13,000 yuan to about 700 yuan.

The initial challenge in developing a coronary stent was to make it both tough and rigid. A stent is tough if it can pass through coronary arteries that have variable directions and large branching angles, and stiff if it can hold up a narrowed arterial lumen that has been widened so that it won't retract. Stent design engineers in the selection of materials and construction, after unremitting efforts to solve a variety of difficult problems, and finally succeeded in producing the first generation of arterial stents.