But Adds New Hurdles for Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) and Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Connected Health Initiative (CHI) issued the following statement on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) final CY 2027 Physician Fee Schedule:
“The final Physician Fee Schedule is a mixed bag, but overall it’s trending negatively,” said Brian Scarpelli, executive director of the Connected Health Initiative (CHI). “CMS did make some of the changes CHI called for in our comments, and it delayed the worst of its proposal by preserving payment for treatment management and keeping the existing remote monitoring codes. But the final rule still creates more friction, not less, for practitioners serving Medicare beneficiaries who rely on remote monitoring.
“The new initiating visit and established-patient requirements for remote patient monitoring (RPM) and remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM), together with lower payment for device and set-up services beginning in January, will slow adoption by practitioners, especially in rural areas and for patients with chronic illness.
“The final rule does take a positive step on AI-enabled care, part of the innovative health technology that Administrator Oz and Secretary Kennedy have advocated for over the last two years. CHI welcomes CMS’s decision to set national payment rates for several algorithm-based analyses instead of leaving them to contractor pricing, and to give clinicians credit in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System for the responsible use of AI.
“As CMS acts on the comments it received on technology-enabled care, we urge the agency to set a consistent and predictable way to pay for AI-enabled services that builds on existing coding pathways, keeps clinicians accountable for AI-supported decisions, and ties payment to better outcomes for patients.
“As we continue to dig through the details, CHI will push CMS on clinical staffing arrangements for remote monitoring before the 2029 deadline and will continue to fight to advance the policy environment needed to support the development and deployment of digital health tools and services that save lives and reduce costs.”
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About Connected Health Initiative (CHI)
The Connected Health Initiative is a coalition of industry stakeholders and partners leading efforts to harness the power of technology to improve patient engagement and health outcomes. CHI works to clarify outdated health regulations, incent the use of connected health technologies, and ensure an environment in which patients and consumers can see improvement in their health.
