Billy Abbott, a retired Army medic, wakes at 6 every morning, steps on the bathroom scale, and uses a cuff to take his blood pressure.
The devices send those measurements electronically to his doctor in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and a health technology company based in New York, to help him control his high blood pressure.
Nurses with the company, Cadence, remotely monitor his readings along with the vital signs of about 17,000 other patients around the nation. They call patients regularly and follow up if anything appears awry. If needed, they can change a patient’s medication or dosage without first alerting their doctor.
Abbott, 85, said he likes that someone is watching out for him outside his regular doctor appointments. “More doctors should recommend this to their patients,” he said.
Increasingly, they are.
Dozens of tech companies have streamed in, pushing their remote monitoring service to primary care doctors as a way to keep tabs on patients with chronic illnesses and free up appointment time, and as a new source of Medicare revenue.
But some experts say remote monitoring’s huge growth — spurred on during the covid-19 pandemic, when patients were hesitant to sit in crowded doctors’ waiting rooms — has outpaced oversight and evidence of how the technology is best used.
“It is the wild West where any patient can get it if a doct …
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Billy Abbott, a retired Army medic, wakes at 6 every morning, steps on the bathroom scale, and uses a cuff to take his blood pressure.
The devices send those measurements electronically to his doctor in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and a health technology company based in New York, to help him control his high blood pressure.
Nurses with the company, Cadence, remotely monitor his readings along with the vital signs of about 17,000 other patients around the nation. They call patients regularly and follow up if anything appears awry. If needed, they can change a patient’s medication or dosage without first alerting their doctor.
Abbott, 85, said he likes that someone is watching out for him outside his regular doctor appointments. “More doctors should recommend this to their patients,” he said.
Increasingly, they are.
Dozens of tech companies have streamed in, pushing their remote monitoring service to primary care doctors as a way to keep tabs on patients with chronic illnesses and free up appointment time, and as a new source of Medicare revenue.
But some experts say remote monitoring’s huge growth — spurred on during the covid-19 pandemic, when patients were hesitant to sit in crowded doctors’ waiting rooms — has outpaced oversight and evidence of how the technology is best used.
“It is the wild West where any patient can get it if a doct …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]