Spending of medical devices in Slovakia

Medical devices (MD), together with pharmacotherapy are supportive treatment of many acute and chronic diseases. MD as a part of medical technologies lead to more effective treatment, faster patient recovery and a reduced risk of complications. Many MD are reimbursed from public health insurance funds entirely; for others, particularly advanced functional types of MD, there must be patient participation on price or they can buy them according own decision (direct sale). The target of this study is to analyze the data from paid databases of National Center for Health Information (NCHI) that collects the outputs of provided healthcare. The most recent data were from 1.1.2013 to 30.9.2013. According to NCHI, apart from community pharmacies, there are 226 registered establishments that sold MD until 30.9.2013. Their specialization included dispensing MD (n=163), dispensing orthopaedic devices (n=48) and dispensing audioprosthetic devices (n=15). In the observed period, average monthly spending on MD were 10.1 million packages and 14 million €. Average monthly spending on reimbursed MD were 8.8 million packages and 12.9 million €. The groups with the largest shares were MD for incontinence and urinary retention, 7.7 million packages (86.9%) and 3.9 million € (30.7%); plasters and bandaging materials, 0.5 million packages (6.0%) and 1.3 million € (10.1%); MD for ostomies, 0.4 million packages (4.5%) and 1 million € (8.0%); and the MD for diabetics group, 0.1 million packages (1.4%) and 1.6 million € (12.8%). Direct sales of MD per month on average reached 1.3 million packages and 1.1 million €. The groups with largest shares were MD for incontinence and urinary retention, 629,660 packages (50.3%) and 291,919 € (26.2%); plasters and bandaging materials, 388,111 packages (31.0%) and 227,119 € (20.4%); and MD for diabetics, 56,014 packages (4.5%) and 81,721 € (7.3%).