A small tooth is related to great health. Oral health is an important part of general health. Missing teeth not only affects chewing, eating, speech and appearance, but also indirectly affects digestive function and quality of life. The repair of missing teeth has therefore become an urgent livelihood need for many people.
The National Medical Insurance Administration held a press conference on the results of the centralized procurement of oral implants and orthodontic brackets on the 28th. Since the first round of the inter-provincial alliance for centralized procurement of oral implants and orthodontic brackets was launched, the goal of "reasonably reducing the cost burden of dental implants and orthodontics" has been achieved. In the future, the continued procurement of oral implants will expand the coverage of centralized procurement of consumables to better meet the diverse needs of oral treatment.
Mr. Zhang, who lives in Chengdu, Sichuan, has had dental implants for several years. In his opinion, not having to worry about teeth that hurt from time to time and not having to endure the inconvenience caused by missing teeth are all changes brought about by the centralized procurement of oral implants.
Mr. Zhang: Everyone knows that dental implants are very expensive, and they don’t dare to go to the hospital. If the tooth hurts, just take some medicine, or just endure it. Later I heard that the price of dental implants is now transparent, so we went to the hospital to get the dental implants, and the effect was quite good.
Previously, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces took the lead in carrying out inter-provincial alliances to purchase oral implants and orthodontic brackets respectively. Three years since the first round of centralized procurement was implemented, the cost of dental implants and orthodontics has returned to a reasonable level, with the cost of a single conventional dental implant reduced from 15,000 yuan to 6,000 to 7,000 yuan. Public medical institutions across the country have actually purchased 3.47 million implant systems in the past three years; the number of dental implant surgeries has increased from 210,000 in 2022 to 890,000 in 2025, with an average annual growth of 71%. Yang Zheng, deputy director of West China Stomatological Hospital, said that the implementation of centralized procurement allows the masses to afford dental implants and ensure good dental implants.
Yang Zheng, Vice President of West China Stomatological Hospital: During the implementation, we insist on giving priority to the selected products, opening up the entire chain of procurement, warehousing, and use and settlement to implement mark separation, standardizing the price of implant medical services, making prices public and transparent, and centralized procurement is not a simple price reduction, which reduces falsely high prices, but promotes the return of oral implants to their medical essence.
Wang Xiaoning, director of the Pharmaceutical Pricing and Bidding and Procurement Department of the National Medical Insurance Administration, revealed that judging from the results of centralized procurement, the benefits of benefiting the people and the demand for diagnosis and treatment have been fully released, and the expected goals of patient benefit, industrial development, and medical improvement have been achieved.
Wang Xiaoning, Director of the Department of Pharmaceutical Pricing and Bidding and Procurement of the National Medical Insurance Administration: Regarding dental implants, three measures have been taken: centralized procurement of implants, crown hanging nets, and service price regulation. In terms of orthodontics, centralized procurement has fully incorporated mainstream consumables such as cermets and invisible brackets. The volume of dental implant services in public medical institutions across the country and the number of consultations in private institutions have increased significantly. The actual procurement completion rate of orthodontic brackets in the 16 alliance provinces has reached 118%. Centralized procurement has promoted market competition to a comprehensive competition of quality and technical services. Implant companies are growing rapidly and their product supply is more diversified.
The key to benefiting the people lies in the quality and safety of centralized procurement consumables. The medical insurance, drug regulatory and other departments will include the oral consumables selected through centralized procurement into the key supervision catalog, achieving 100% full coverage of enterprise inspections and product sampling inspections.
With the expiration of the first round of relevant centralized procurement agreements, continued procurement has become a key measure to consolidate the results of centralized procurement reform. The industry believes that expansion and quality improvement have become important changes in this successive procurement. A variety of new materials will be included in the scope of procurement; clinical scenarios for multi-dental restorations will also be included in the coverage, and more treatment needs will be met.
Li Dewei, director of the Sichuan Provincial Medical Insurance Bureau, revealed that all the procurement work is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
Li Dewei, Director of the Sichuan Provincial Medical Insurance Bureau: We insist on encouraging innovation, adapting to clinical practice, and including consensus-based new material implants into the scope of procurement. The original bidding model will be changed to an open inquiry model, which will guide enterprises to make reasonable quotations through multi-dimensional price comparison. At present, the total number of reporting companies participating in the continued procurement has increased from 53 to 101, an increase of 91%. The total number of product parts increased from 391 to 1,008, an increase of 158%.
The continued procurement work will also include some dental specialist medical institutions as formal member units to jointly participate in the research and formulation of centralized bulk purchase rules for two types of dental consumables, and the monitoring and evaluation of implementation effects. Wang Xiaoning revealed that the centralized procurement of consumables in related fields such as oral treatment and correction has entered a new stage of normalization and institutionalization.
Wang Xiaoning, Director of the Department of Pharmaceutical Pricing and Bidding and Procurement of the National Medical Insurance Administration: I hope that the majority of dental medical institutions, especially private dental medical institutions, will continue to actively participate in centralized purchasing, rely on the dividends of reduced consumable costs from centralized purchasing, deepen the development of diagnosis and treatment technology, and optimize service quality; the normalization and institutionalization of centralized purchasing will provide enterprises with a stable and predictable market space, and is an important opportunity for high-quality development of the industry. The vast number of enterprises adhere to the bottom line of quality and safety, strictly fulfill contracts and ensure supply, put an end to malicious low-price involvement, bid-rigging and other behaviors, and jointly maintain a fair and orderly market environment.
