Meghan McCarty Carino

It's been a decade since 3D printing came to the prosthetics industry, and it still hasn't brought costs down.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

Prosthetic limbs can be pricey, costing thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So the industry seemed ripe for disruption when 3D printing came along.

The technology requires little labor and uses economical materials.

But the reality of 3D printing prosthetic limbs isn't that straightforward, according to writer Britt Young, who uses a prosthetic arm and wrote about this recently for IEE Spectrum magazine.

One of the factors that you describe as being a barrier to reducing cost actually has nothing to do with the actual devices, but how insurance is covering them.

Can you tell me more about that?

And was that a 3D printed attachment?

Or do you have any experience kind of navigating this specific 3D prosthetic market?

We'll be right back.

You are listening to Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

We're back with writer and UC Berkeley lecturer Britt Young.

So what do you think would need to change in order for 3D printing to actually deliver on the promise of cheaper prosthetics?

The American healthcare system obviously has its own idiosyncrasies, but I'm curious if sort of on a global level you think that 3D printing will ever deliver on, you know, the promise of reducing the cost of these devices.

So bottom line, do you think that this technology will successfully bring costs down at some point?

That was writer Britt Young.

We've linked to her article about the complicated economics of 3D printed prosthetics at our website, marketplacetech.org.