Squeeze out the price water and the centralized procurement of dental implant consumables kicks off
Many places in China have carried out the exploration of the centralized procurement of dental implants. After the implementation, it is expected to change the market structure and promote the development of domestic brands.
The patient received treatment at a private dental clinic in Guangzhou.
With the acceleration of the aging process of my country's population, the oral health care market is also developing explosively.
According to the "Dental Implant Industry In-depth Report" released last year, 4 million new dental implants will be added in my country in 2020, and whether the current high cost of dental implants can be reduced has also attracted the attention of more and more dental patients.
The reporter learned from an interview that the executive meeting of the State Council held on January 10 decided to "normalize and institutionalize the centralized procurement of drugs and high-value medical consumables to further reduce the medical burden of patients", which particularly emphasized "expanding the collection of high-value medical consumables." Centralized procurement of orthopedic consumables, drug balloons, dental implants, etc., which are of concern to the public, will be carried out at the national and provincial levels." Can the centralized procurement quickly drive down the price of dental implants?
Reporters conducted an investigation.
Text, Photos/Feng Qiuyu, All Media Reporter of Guangzhou Daily
Status quo: Implants mostly rely on imported single teeth with a huge price gap
Dental implants are equivalent to the third set of teeth. Patients have better chewing effect and higher service life, so they are highly anticipated by patients who are willing to implant. But at the same time, the high price of dental implants is inevitably daunting.
The reporter learned from an interview that the dental implant system includes implants, abutments, crowns, etc. Currently, there are more than ten types of implants circulating in the Chinese market, most of which are imported from abroad.
Among them, the implants produced in Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and South Korea occupy the high, middle and low-end markets respectively. In addition to the cost of consumables, there are also medical service costs from the first implant to the installation of the crown.
But the same product has different prices in different dental hospitals.
记者采访广州多家口腔医院了解到，种植单牙的费用在几千元到一两万元不等，价格差距较为悬殊。位于天河区某民营口腔机构的“韩国种植牙系统”“瑞典诺贝尔ACTIVE套餐+含全瓷冠”项目的价格分别为7800元、23800元，工作人员表示费用包含了CT费、检查费等；位于黄埔区的一家民营口腔医院，其“韩国登腾基台+国产全瓷冠”和“德国ASTRA EV基体+进口全瓷冠”的套餐价在10000元~20000元之间；而在位于越秀区的一家民营口腔医院，“韩国登腾种植牙套餐”仅需2980元。工作人员表示，“目前主要采用进口的(种植体)，国产的(种植体)才刚进入市场，临床实验还不够完善。”
而对于想去公立医院种牙的患者来说，查询医疗价格并不容易。记者在市内某公立口腔医院官网上没有找到价格公示，在该院就诊过的患者表示：“看牙时医生会告诉一个大概的数额，到结算时才会知道准确数字。”记者在另一家公立口腔医院官网找到了“医疗服务价格公示”：该院有10余种类型的种植体，价格从2227.5元~9546元不等。此外，牙种植体植入术项目每种植体的价格为3680元、牙种植Ⅱ期术每种植体单位价格为400元。
记者了解到，目前我国种植体耗材大多数都要依靠进口，90%以上的种植牙被瑞士、德国和韩国的品牌垄断。国海证券2021年发布的《种植牙行业深度报告》显示：我国种植牙数量呈爆发式增长，2020 年我国种植牙数量约达400万颗，销量增长28.2%，2020年我国每万人种植牙的数量约28颗，平均每颗牙的消费金额7400元。从单个种牙价格来看，奥齿泰、登腾等韩国品牌价格在5000元~6000元，高端的欧美系士卓曼、诺贝尔等在1.5万元以上，其他为部分国产品牌，价格跟韩系接近。
记者调查：种几颗牙花了十几万 小小“螺丝钉” 利润大
The 34-year-old Xiaohui works in the service industry in Guangzhou. Her dark, small, and uneven teeth have always made her feel inferior. Usually, she doesn't like to talk much, and she has to cover her mouth tightly when she laughs.
Introduced by a friend, she treated her teeth in a private dental clinic in Guangzhou, and planted a few teeth. "The effect was still very good. Later, almost no friends around me knew me anymore, saying that after my teeth were cured, people would become It looks good." But because of the high cost of dental care, Xiaohui spent hundreds of thousands of yuan before and after.
Some patients have more serious dental problems, and some even need a full mouth of teeth, and the cost is even higher.
The 43-year-old Amin is a native of Guangzhou and has opened a restaurant in the urban area, which is doing well.
However, she has a big trouble, that is, her mouth is full of rotten teeth.
"In the beginning, there was only one carious tooth. Later, all the teeth became black, which especially affected the image, and the food was also affected." A few years ago, Amin found a dental clinic and almost all the bad teeth were extracted. The total cost of dental implants More than 500,000 yuan, but for the sake of health and beauty, Amin still "bit the teeth" to pay.
Different from young implanters, implanters in their 60s and 70s often face the problem of atrophy of the gums. The implantation process is longer and the risks are relatively greater.
Aunt Huang, 65, had a "screw" in the dental clinic in April last year. However, she went to the clinic three times within six months and was told that she needed to "wait a little longer." Ya's schedule has been pushed back to March this year.
Aunt Huang told reporters that her entire upper jaw had been pulled out, and four implants were placed in her maxilla. For more than half a year, she was very inconvenient to eat.
"Medical insurance can only reimburse the cost of CT and anesthesia, and the main medical expenses such as planting are not currently covered by medical insurance." Aunt Huang said.
From the price lists of various dental institutions, it is not difficult to find that in the total cost of dental implants, implants are the "big head".
As the core consumable for dental implants, it has become the "reason" for many dental patients to pay high fees.
The reporter interviewed many experts and learned that the price of implant consumables itself only accounts for about 10% of the cost paid by consumers.
The reporter's investigation found that many imported implants with a price of 10,000 yuan have an ex-factory price of almost only 1,000 yuan.
Yang Li, a senior researcher at Guangzhou Zhongcheng Medical Device Research Institute, said: "At present, the purchase price of implants in hospitals generally ranges from 500 yuan to 2,500 yuan, such as a high-end Swiss brand, which is about 2,000 yuan." According to the "Dental Implant Industry Depth" According to the survey data of the report, from the purchase price of dental hospitals, the cost of Korean brand implants is 500-800 yuan; European and American brands are 1,600-3,000 yuan, and the average price of implants is about 775 yuan.
"This price is basically credible, but it's still a bit high," said Shi Lichen, an expert in pharmaceutical strategic marketing.
The "In-depth Report on the Dental Implant Industry" shows that the distribution of dental implant costs focuses on the hospital side.
The traditional point of view is that 25% of the cost of dental implants is for diagnosis and treatment, and 75% is for consumables; 16% of consumables are repair materials, and 59% are dental implant systems (40% for implants, 7% for abutments, artificial crown 12%).
In fact, more money paid by consumers flows into the dental hospital, which is used to pay for physician fees, marketing expenses, purchase of medical equipment, storefront rent, and dental hospital profits. The actual proportion of consumables costs is relatively low.
"Including the cost of medical equipment and decoration, our dental clinic has spent 5 million yuan before opening." A doctor in a dental clinic in Haizhu District revealed to reporters.
"The cost of dental implants is actually more from the learning and training costs of stomatologists, as well as the cost of hospital promotion and operation." Yang Li said.
According to Shi Lichen's analysis, in fact, the production cost of dental materials is not high, and the reason for the high fees is a bit like the glasses industry - the purchase price is not high, but the "added value" is high.
good news:
Many places have carried out the exploration of the collection of dental consumables
The good news is that dental consumables are getting closer and closer to centralized collection.
The reporter learned from an interview that the executive meeting of the State Council held on January 10 decided to "normalize and institutionalize the centralized procurement of medicines and high-value medical consumables to further reduce the medical burden of patients", in which special emphasis was placed on "expanding the collection of high-value medical consumables." Collecting orthopaedic consumables, drug balloons, dental implants, etc. that are of concern to the public at the national and provincial levels."
"The centralized procurement of dental consumables is forming a provincial alliance. Some time ago, Ningbo City established a medical insurance catalogue for dental implants, and Sichuan has completed the declaration of product information for dental implant companies and the reporting of historical usage in hospitals. The industry believes that dental implant centralized procurement It's getting closer." Yang Li said.
The reporter recently learned from an interview with the National Pharmaceutical Purchasing Center that starting from November 26, 2021, the Sichuan Medical Insurance Bureau took the lead in Ningxia, Shanxi and other places to explore the centralized procurement of dental implant consumables, and successively issued the "Notice on the Declaration of Oral Medical Consumables Information", At present, the filling in of historical dental implant procurement data is being carried out one after another, and all public medical institutions that carry out oral implant surgery are required to participate.
The scope of reporting is the oral implant system, including implants, prosthetic abutments, implant prosthetic accessories, etc.
When will the centralized collection of dental implant consumables be available?
Shi Lichen said: "It is still under discussion. Since the centralized procurement involves many institutions and enterprises, it is expected to take a long time to land." Yang Li said: "Because private dental hospitals occupy most of the service market, only public hospitals rely on public hospitals. The number reported by the hospital is not accurate enough. The thinking behind should be that the company will become the main body of the report, because they only have the actual sales data of dental implant products.”
Industry voice:
Centralized procurement is expected to squeeze out the price moisture to regulate the healthy development of the market
Will the price of dental implants drop significantly after the centralized procurement is completed?
The director of the department of stomatology of a well-known tertiary hospital believes that if dental implant consumables are included in the centralized procurement, it may change the domestic market layout, which will be of great benefit to domestic manufacturers first, and may be reduced to less than 1,000 yuan per implant after the centralized procurement.
Due to the relatively high cost performance of domestic brands, they are expected to account for about 50% of the market share; and as the volume increases, more profits will be generated, and domestic brands will increase research and development efforts to improve product quality and enter a virtuous circle.
Shi Lichen believes that, excluding labor costs and medical equipment costs, the profit of dental implants is very high, especially some private dental medical institutions set their own prices.
"The centralized procurement of dental implant consumables is expected to squeeze out the price water, and the specific price reduction rate will be determined according to the situation of each province." He analyzed, "The technical content, production difficulty and product raw material price of domestic implants are much lower than that of cardiac stents, which leads to The centralized procurement price of implants will not reach the level of the price of cardiac stents; as for imported implants, it mainly depends on whether they can enter the centralized procurement, and if they enter, there will be a substantial price reduction.”
"Compared with the orthopaedic consumables and cardiovascular consumables that have been purchased on a large scale by public hospitals in recent years, high-value consumables such as dental implants have certain consumption attributes." Yang Li introduced that conventional purchases are based on the consumption of public hospitals. As a bargaining chip, but in the field of dentistry, oral consumables are less dependent on public hospitals. China Research Puhua released the "2021-2025 In-depth Research and Investment Research and Consulting Report on China's Oral Medical Industry" It is estimated that in 2021, my country's private dental hospitals will reach 866, accounting for more than 83% of dental hospitals.
"In the future, there will be uncertainty in the subject of centralized procurement (whether private institutions will participate)." Yang Li believes that the cost of dental implant materials is not expected to drop significantly, and it is expected to be around 20%.
"After all, it is still necessary to ensure the innovation power and product quality of the enterprise at this stage."
Industry professionals believe that the cost distribution ratio of the dental implant industry chain has its own particularity.
"In addition to the high price of the material itself, the real high value is the 'added value', that is to say, the fees for diagnosis, treatment, other auxiliary materials, doctors' fees, etc. are added to the materials. At present, private hospital product procurement can participate in centralized procurement , Although centralized procurement has solved the problem of material procurement costs, but the 'added value' has not been solved. Generally speaking, private institutions set their own prices for diagnosis and treatment, and will not necessarily take the initiative to reduce the overall price in the short term."
Yang Li believes that China's orthodontic and dental implant markets are large in scale, highly market-oriented, and have high profit margins.
Centralized procurement is not only expected to reduce the high price of dental implants and intensify the competition among industry enterprises, but also help to improve the concentration of the industry and regulate the healthy development of the market.