RAPIDLY EXPANDING MARKET FOR REMOTE PATIENT MONITORING FACES REIMBURSEMENT HURDLES
Medicare reimbursement is lagging for advanced devices that allow doctors and nurses to interact remotely with patients, and industry wants Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to act soon to address the issue.
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) offers huge market opportunities in preventive care and home-based treatment of chronic diseases and conditions, but lawmakers and regulators need to act to ensure the devices will be reimbursed, an industry official said.
RPM falls under the umbrella of telemedicine, or telehealth, which is the use of telecommunications technology networked with devices to monitor, diagnose, evaluate and treat patients outside of medical facilities -- usually in their own homes.
"We are getting wonderful traction in the market," Eric Lichtenstein, director of Cybernet Medical, said.
Cybernet manufactures MedStar, a small and relatively inexpensive device that collects data on patients' vital signs through in-home devices such as scales, respirometers, pulse oximeters, glucometers and blood pressure cuffs. Data is sent to a web-based electronic system through which health professionals have immediate access to updated outpatient information.