I too had a reason to wear an event monitor and the things were expensive, silly, poorly thought out and just poorly made. Thousands of dollars for something that has to phone home using a land line?
I asked the doctor why there wasn't something cheaper that did this better. He had no idea. How companies can charge this much for simple devices is beyond me. They aren't that complex...
There is a lot of money in cardiology. Cardiology has a lot of patients that are older and wealthier. Cardiology and cancer get a lot of research grants, because the people who control the purse strings are older, wealthier folks.
Conversely, there is hardly any money in mental illness. Mental illness has a lot of patients that are younger and impoverished.
Anyway, making medical equipment isn't something that's just one step above a breadboard. Have a look at the article again - to get the regulatory stamps, for someone who's willing to sell at zero profit, will take $230k. For one product. Throw a lot of infrastructure around that, and it's easy to see how medical hardware costs a lot. Especially given that it's generally pretty low turnover. Sure, there's a nice amount of fat in there, but you get that in industries with a high barrier to entry.
Oh this reminds of recent startup-conf, where health was(or should I say is) the next big thing. Premium-VC investor on stage was saying that if the product is regulated(=medical device classification) then they are not interested.
I asked the doctor why there wasn't something cheaper that did this better. He had no idea. How companies can charge this much for simple devices is beyond me. They aren't that complex...