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How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

washingtonmonthly.com

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Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

#121

Post by scotty79 »

"Then, in 1986 Congress passed a bill exempting GPOs from the anti-kickback provisions embedded in Medicare law. This meant that instead of collecting membership dues, GPOs could collect “fees”—in other industries they might be called kickbacks or bribes—from suppliers in the form of a share of sales revenue."

No one in their right mind could imagine that anyone could be genuinely stupid enough to think that allowing organisation that was supposed to work for buyers, take money from sellers is a good idea.

That law was 100% surely bought. You don't need any other proof that USA has best Congress money can buy.

Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

#122

Post by robomartin »

After spending way too much time on this thread here's my parting thought:

Some choose to believe that corporate greed is the cause of issues such as that highlighted by this article. Others believe that the political and legal system in place has flaws that create the conditions necessary for such things to happen. And some are in between these two schools of though.

Here's the kicker: While we live within and with our reality other parts of the world are watching. And in some parts (China?) they are surely having thoughts akin to "these people are too stupid to get out of their own way". And so, we'll keep arguing and "enjoying" the ineptitude, complexities and realities of our reality while others will watch, learn, study and take measures to ensure that they don't fall into the same traps.

Yes, there will probably be better syringes in China than in the US. And, with time, that will be true about a lot more things and a number of other countries.

Enjoy.

Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

#123

Post by paul »

smokeyj wrote: post #89
paul wrote: post #67

When people complain about entrepreneurs building social networks instead of curing cancer, they need to understand that this is a big part of the reason. The internet attracts so much innovation in large part because it's very open to innovation. In more regulated/corrupt (the two are closely related) fields, such as health care, there are many barriers to competition that kill innovative new companies. Mobile was a…

So is regulation the answer or the cause?

Both.

I think it's a little bit like asking whether programmers are the cause of bugs, or the solution. The problem is that the regulations are being created by people who are either incompetent, corrupt, or possibly both. Unfortunately people in government don't really have the right set of incentives, and so it's not surprising that the results are awful. Imagine if software were written in the same way that laws are written :(

Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

#124

Post by ubernostrum »

robomartin wrote: post #66
gamble wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not seeing how the government was an issue in this case. The article is about how private companies use kickbacks and cartel behaviour to restrict what products are available to hospitals. It seems like a lack of government action is the problem here.

No,no. Read it again. The government setup the rules that enabled exactly that behavior. If they (government) didn't try to play entrepreneur or investor we'd be far better off. There are cases where government involvement is warranted. I'm with Ron Paul on this one: Get them off our backs, we do and did just fine when they had less hooks into us. This is particularly true with the existence of the Internet. It's pre…

No, no. Read it again.

The government did away with an oppressive, invasive, business-destroying regulation which limited the free operation of the market and the absolute and unfettered sanctity of contract. Suddenly subject to nothing more than pure market forces -- what lesser minds might call a "loophole", unless they've read the right economists -- rationally self-interested actors in the market did what rationally self-interested actors do.

Welcome to Libertopia.

Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

#125

Post by anigbrowl »

robomartin wrote: post #117
anigbrowl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Nope' is not an argument. Government rules previously forbid kickbacks, a common commercial practice. the rules were changed to remove this restriction. If legislators are corrupt for changing the rules, who is corrupting them? why should they skate? This was clearly a reduction in government interference in the marketplace, and what we've got instead is a situation where the dominant market player uses its commerci…

"Your argument seems adrift from reality and increasingly resembles mere ranting." I really have to thank you for that. I appreciate personal comments of this kind in the middle of an otherwise civil discussion. I apologize for not agreeing with you and moving on. Thanks.

I haven't made any personal remarks about you. I've just observed that you've devoted more than 50% of your comment above to argument about irrelevant topics, and that those arguments rest on inaccurate assumptions, such as the inevitable expansion of government.

Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

#127

Post by kijin »

excuse-me wrote: post #114
DanBC wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some keyboards have silver in the keys. Some keyboards have a squishy membrane cover which can be sprayed and scrubbed. But, really, people need to wash their hands (soap and hot water) before they touch a patient.

The problem is the number of patients and the amount of data that has to be entered into different systems means you would spend 90% of your time washing your hands or taking gloves on and off. Imagine programming where everytime your hand went between the keyboard and mouse you had to go and wash your hands! The problem is that adding more computers is always a 'good thing' - how can more info about a patient be bad…

Hand sanitizer?

It takes all of 2 seconds to squeeze it onto your hands, and you can apply it on your way to the next patient.

Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

#128

Post by rdl »

I hope Amazon casts its all-powerful crappy-legacy-vendor-destroying eye upon the medical supply market soon.

All the value-add GPOs offer (other than pricing) is stuff Amazon could easily do for free -- inventory tracking, etc. It's all IT, and basically zero marginal cost.

As long as existing GPOs can't legally prevent a hospital from also using the Amazon GPO, I don't see how anyone could stand against Amazon. Amazon would have zero incentive to lock new device vendors out of the market. Sure, purchases from the Amazon GPO wouldn't contribute to meeting your legacy GPO quotas and rebates, but Amazon has access to capital at levels which will let them destroy regional competition if required -- they could price match any subsidized prices.

Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

#129

Post by mudil »

robomartin wrote: post #122

After spending way too much time on this thread here's my parting thought: Some choose to believe that corporate greed is the cause of issues such as that highlighted by this article. Others believe that the political and legal system in place has flaws that create the conditions necessary for such things to happen. And some are in between these two schools of though. Here's the kicker: While we live within and with…

Thanks, robomartin, for your thoughtful commentary. You are right 100%, through and through. Unfortunately, as I learned long time ago, it seems to me that much of the people on HN believe that gov't is never at fault. That regulation, taxation, and other forms of gov't oppression are good things. Ever. Especially, when reassured by a politician.

Today's progressives are just sheeple. They will believe blindly any politician that says "for the children's future" or "for teachers and fire fighters," so let's raise taxes or strangle pharmaceutical companies.

A "progressive" used to mean "believe in individual" or "believe in freedom." Today it means "believe in gov't" or "believe in regulation" or "believe in politically correct speech", etc etc (the list is long).

Progressives, in other words, are just statists.

Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals

#130

Post by earbitscom »

paul wrote: post #87
Retric wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building App's is ridiculously simpler than solving major problems like cancer. Consider the smartest person you ever met could spends their entire life working on a cancer cure with everything they had and chances are they would have saved more lives by donating 10% of their salary to a vaccination program.

Yeah, cancer definitely isn't the "low hanging fruit". Hospital errors and infections would be much easier to address, though as this article shows, even that is nearly impossible.

Fighting cancer is a $200B+ industry. It's not cured yet because 1 million people would suddenly be unemployed.
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