Strict Industry Standards are the Only Answer to Achieve Benefits from Physician Owned Distributorships (PODS), Close Unethical PODs, and Protect Patients and Hospitals
REDLANDS, Calif., March 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Association of Surgeon Distributors (AASD) calls on hospitals, insurers and the Federal Government to adapt and enforce standards to protect patients, eliminate bad PODs and realize benefit from ethical PODs.
Articles like Modern Healthcare's March 11th "Justice Department investigating doc-owned distributorship," further evidence the strong need for strict standards. The piece detailed a False Claims Act investigation being conducted by the Justice Department. The civil lawsuit alleges that Dr. Aria Sabit hid his profits as an investor in a POD and that financial incentives from the POD may have led him to perform unnecessary surgeries.
Medical devices are a $50BB industry. The only real competition the oligopoly of five key orthopedic medical device manufactures have seen has been by PODs. However, most PODs are frequently driven by profits more than patient/hospital outcomes, and follow no standards for disclosure, cost savings to hospitals, usage, etc. The nonprofit AASD is the only industry accrediting body creating and fighting for strict standards to be followed by PODs.
"ePODs align with their hospitals to lower healthcare costs," explained Dr. John Steinmann, DO, who serves as an advisor to the AASD board of directors. "ePODs play an important role in healthcare reform, competition and the affordability of needed procedures."
The AASD requires members to adhere to very strong standards and processes for: transparency / full disclosure to hospitals and patients; commitment to cost savings and patient outcomes; product quality assurance; strict legal compliance; and submission of costs, pricing and utilization data for auditing.
About the AASD:
The AASD is the only public-benefit, non-profit association whose purpose is to provide, monitor and enforce an industry-recognized set of strict standards for surgeon owned distributorships. The AASD only grants (and maintains) membership to distributorships that are fully compliant. Its members are deemed ethical PODs (or ePODs). For more information on ePODs, and the AASD's standards and policies, please visit www.aasdonline.org.
Media Contacts:
Kevin Pugar, AASD, (909) 748-5759, [email protected]
Jason Sherman, SHERMAN communications & marketing, 312-577-7650, [email protected]
SOURCE American Association of Surgeon Distributors
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