The US federal health insurer has pushed ahead with a plan to stop hospitals using outside companies to provide clinical staff for remote patient monitoring, despite widespread objections from the healthcare sector.
Medicare, the United States government health programme for older and disabled Americans, has moved forward with a contested policy that would prevent hospitals from outsourcing the clinical staff element of remote patient monitoring (RPM) — the use of digital devices to track patients’ health from home — to third-party providers. Implementation is expected to take effect on January 1, 2029, having been delayed by two years from the originally proposed start date of January 1, 2027. The decision came despite what the programme described as overwhelming opposition from those who responded to the proposal.
RPM services typically involve wearable or home-based devices that send readings such as blood pressure, heart rate, or blood oxygen levels to clinical teams without the patient needing to attend a clinic. The question of who can legitimately bill for and deliver those services has been a point of dispute in American healthcare policy.
Medicare’s decision to press ahead regardless of the opposition signals a firm regulatory position on how these services should be structured and funded under the federal programme. According to the policy as finalised, the restriction applies only to the use of third-party clinical staff; hospitals may still outsource devices, software, connectivity, hosting, cybersecurity, and technical support to outside companies.
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Source: @statnews