Patients Are Being Left High And Dry When Medical Implant Makers Implode

Techirt has long discussed how in the modern era, the things you buy aren't actually the things you buy. And the things you own aren't actually the things you own. Things you thought you owned can be downgraded, bricked, or killed off entirely without much notice.

That game console with backward compatibility? It no longer has backward compatibility. That smart home hub or smart speaker at the heart of your living room setup you've enjoyed for years? It no longer works. The movies and books you thought were permanently in your personal catalog? Sorry, they aren't anymore. That perfectly good two-year-old phone? It no longer gets security updates, putting you and your data at risk.

This is all bad enough when talking about smart home hubs or smart refrigerators, but it's another thing entirely when it comes to life-saving or pain-reducing medical implants. Like in 2020, when a company named Argus shut down, leaving customers losing the gift of sight thanks to their medical implants no longer being supported.

Nature Magazine last week took a deeper look at the problem of medical implant customers suddenly being left high and dry by either incompetence, policy changes, or bankruptcies. It's very much worth a read. They start by profiling a man who has an implant in his cheek made by Autonomic Technologies (ATI) that routinely saves him from crushing cluster headaches.

But ATI collapsed in 2019, leaving implant owners screwed; unable to access the device since the company hadn't apparently thought that far ahead:

The company's closure left Mollmann-Bohle and more than 700 other people alone with a complex implanted medical device. People using the stimulator and their physicians could no longer access the proprietary software needed to recalibrate the device and maintain its effectiveness. Mollmann-Bohle and his fellow users now faced the prospect of the battery in the hand-held remote wearing out, robbing them of the relief that they had found. I was left standing in the rain," Mollmann-Bohle says.

The story continues along these lines, highlighting similar collapses by companies that make spinal-cord stimulators, vision implants, chronic pain management systems, and other medical implant technologies that make life bearable for millions. Sometimes users had expensive alternatives they could flee too, often they did not. Even when they did, it required costly, painful new surgeries.

Few of them designed systems that could withstand company collapse, and like most modern tech companies few, if any, supported independent consumer or third-party repair. That greatly restricts not only who these patients can turn to for help, but the availability of parts and documentation.

And, even if they can find parts, they'll often run into trouble with their insurers. Or with companies that quickly acquire the patents shortly after a medical implant company implodes, then do nothing with them.

There are some things that can be done to help these patients. Passing right to repair laws would be a good start, but so far these laws are few and far between, and often don't include medical hardware. Advocates have also pushed for various reform changes and the creation of nonprofits to try and prevent these problems:

Suggestions include the company setting up a partner non-profit organization to manage funds to cover this eventuality; putting aside money in an escrow account; being obliged to take out an insurance policy that would support users; paying into a government-supported safety network; or ensuring the people using the devices are high-priority creditors during bankruptcy proceedings.

But there's very little indication any of that's happening on any real scale. Fixing this could potentially require a law that protects these users, but that's a big ask for a comically corrupt and perpetually gridlocked U.S. Congress, and isn't likely to happen until there's a scandal that's so ugly, denying the problem is not longer possible. And even then patients will likely be waiting a long while.