UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, and Kaiser Permanente have all written letters to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services opposing a Medicare proposal that would require remote patient monitoring care be delivered by direct employees of the practice billing for it. The proposal would effectively ban providers from using contractors for this kind of care.
The insurers are pushing back on the change, which they say could disrupt how doctors bill for tracking patients’ health with connected devices. UnitedHealthcare, the insurance subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, recently attempted to stop paying for most remote patient monitoring “due to insufficient evidence of efficacy.”
The insurers operate both insurance and care organizations, which puts them in a direct conflict with the proposal’s stated aim.
What the Medicare Proposal Would Change
Remote patient monitoring services track patients using devices like connected blood pressure cuffs, scales, and blood glucose meters. The services help manage medical conditions including hypertension, diabetes, and heart failure.
The proposal requires that the care be delivered by direct employees of the practice billing for it. In practical terms, that means providers could no longer bill for care delivered by contractors. They would either have to hire their own staff or stop offering the service altogether.
Who Is Opposing It
The three insurers have all written letters to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services opposing the proposal. They operate both insurance and care organizations, which means they would be affected by the proposal on both sides of the transaction.
The opposition comes from companies that are themselves both insurers and providers. That gives them a particular stake in the outcome.
The UnitedHealthcare Angle
UnitedHealthcare, the insurance subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, recently attempted to stop paying for most remote patient monitoring “due to insufficient evidence of efficacy.” The move was part of a broader push by the company to cut costs by reducing payments for services it considered unsupported by evidence.
The Medicare proposal would require that care be delivered in-house. The insurers have not publicly said whether they want the proposal to go forward or not, and the source does not describe their argument’s posture.
What Remote Patient Monitoring Actually Does
Remote patient monitoring uses devices like connected blood pressure cuffs, scales, and blood glucose meters to track patients at home. The services help manage medical conditions including hypertension, diabetes, and heart failure.
The technology is designed to let patients send data to their doctors without coming into the office.
The proposal would require that the people who collect and transmit that data be direct employees of the practice billing for it. That is a significant restriction, and it is one that the insurers are opposing.
The Conflict of Interest at the Center of This
The insurers are operating both insurance and care organizations. UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, and Kaiser Permanente all run facilities and provide care directly, even as they sell insurance to cover that care.
The proposal would require that care be delivered by direct employees of the practice billing for it. That means the insurers themselves would have to hire their own staff to deliver the care, rather than using contractors. The insurers are arguing that this could disrupt how doctors bill for tracking patients’ health with connected devices.
What Happens Next
The insurers have written letters to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services opposing the proposal. The agency has not said what it will do with those letters.
| Insurer | Role | Position |
|---|---|---|
| UnitedHealth Group | Insurance and care | Opposes the proposal |
| CVS Health | Insurance and care | Opposes the proposal |
| Kaiser Permanente | Insurance and care | Opposes the proposal |
| UnitedHealthcare | Insurance subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group | Previously stopped paying for most remote patient monitoring “due to insufficient evidence of efficacy” |
The Broader Question of Insurer Control
The insurers argue that the Medicare proposal could disrupt how doctors bill for tracking patients’ health with connected devices. The proposal would require that care be delivered by direct employees of the practice billing for it.
The conflict of interest is real. The insurers are arguing about how care is delivered while operating the facilities that deliver it. That is a position that the proposal would make harder to sustain.
The Insurers’ Argument
The insurers have a point. The proposal could disrupt how doctors bill for tracking patients’ health with connected devices. The proposal would require that care be delivered by direct employees of the practice billing for it.
It is worth noting that the insurers are opposing a proposal that could disrupt how doctors bill for tracking patients’ health with connected devices.
The insurers have a conflict of interest in this debate. They are operating both insurance and care organizations. UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, and Kaiser Permanente all run facilities and provide care directly, even as they sell insurance to cover that care.
The proposal would require that care be delivered by direct employees of the practice billing for it. That means the insurers themselves would have to hire their own staff to deliver the care, rather than using contractors. The insurers are arguing that this could disrupt how doctors bill for tracking patients’ health with connected devices.
The insurers have a point. The proposal could disrupt how doctors bill for tracking patients’ health with connected devices.
- The proposal would require that remote patient monitoring care be delivered by direct employees of the practice billing for it.
- The proposal would effectively ban providers from using contractors for remote patient monitoring.
- UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, and Kaiser Permanente have all written letters to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services opposing the proposal.
- UnitedHealthcare, the insurance subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, recently attempted to stop paying for most remote patient monitoring “due to insufficient evidence of efficacy.”
- The insurers operate both insurance and care organizations.
The source is reporting from STAT+, a subscription service, and the full details of the letters and the proposal’s timeline are behind that paywall. The outline above captures the main points, but readers who want the full record should visit statnews.com.
The insurers have made their case.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs small medical practices and independent contractors who deliver remote patient monitoring and is against UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, and Kaiser Permanente, whose lobbying against the Medicare proposal would preserve their own control over these services while raising costs for smaller providers.
The insurers oppose a proposal that would force care delivery by direct employees, which would raise the cost of entry for small providers while letting the giants keep doing things the way they want. The paper’s position is clear: regulation often protects the biggest players and raises the cost of entry for the rest. When the biggest firms themselves operate both insurance and care, the conflict of interest is plain, and the paper supports the small provider against both the agency and the giant.
The reader should watch for whether the proposal moves forward and whether the insurers’ arguments about billing disruption hold up against the interests they are defending.
Source material: “STAT+: UnitedHealth, CVS push back on Medicare plan to curb remote patient monitoring,” STAT.
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