GAO Report Renews Debate Over Device Price Confidentiality

Hospitals, group purchasing organizations and other health care stakeholders want Congress to do away with pricing confidentiality clauses in purchase contracts for implantable devices, but industry wants to maintain its ability to keep device prices secret.

A push to better publicize prices paid by hospitals for implantable devices could gain more steam in response to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office, but device makers contend they should retain the right to keep secret the prices they negotiate with hospitals.

“Lack of price transparency may hamper hospitals’ ability to be prudent purchasers of implantable medical devices,” GAO concluded in the...

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