In a recent interview for Fox News, Martin Smithmyer, CEO of Americord Registry, one of the industry's leading cord blood banking
companies, said, "Although [Americord] does not pay doctors for making
referrals, this is a common practice among some of our competitors,
including at least 3 of the top 6 cord blood banks."
The Obama
administration, in January 2012, made it
clear that under the new health care law it will require certain
healthcare companies to disclose payments they make to doctors -
sometimes amounting to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars
- for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment. The
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), recommends
doctors disclose such payments and arrangements to patients.
Furthermore, according to Smithmyer, cord blood has certain
limitations that parents should know about before they decide to bank
their child's cord blood, since the cost of cord blood banking
is not an insignificant consideration when making this decision.
"Although in this field the technology is always changing, the number of
stem cells in one unit of cord blood today is only sufficient to treat a
child up to about 10 years old," said Smithmyer. Americord Registry is
developing a new technology that will collect up to 10 times more stem
cells. This would be enough to use therapeutically for an adult.
To
learn more, read the full article from Fox contributor: 7 things you should know about cord blood banking.
SOURCE Americord Registry
No comments:
Post a Comment