Additional Oversight of Remote Patient Monitoring in Medicare Is Needed

Why OIG Did This Review

• Medicare broadly covers remote patient monitoring of health data for any chronic or acute condition.
• The use of remote patient monitoring has the potential to greatly expand in the Medicare population.
• As a result, there is an increasing need to know how remote patient monitoring is being used, including who is receiving it and for what conditions, as well as a need to identify any vulnerabilities that may limit the oversight of these services.

What OIG Found

Taken together, our findings demonstrate the need for additional oversight to ensure that remote patient monitoring is being used and billed appropriately.

• The use of remote patient monitoring in Medicare increased dramatically from 2019 to 2022.
• About 43 percent of enrollees who received remote patient monitoring did not receive all 3 components of it, raising questions about whether the monitoring is being used as intended.
• OIG and CMS have raised concerns about fraud related to remote patient monitoring.
• Medicare lacks key information for oversight, including who ordered the monitoring for the enrollee.

Remote Patient Monitoring Infographic

Download a graphical overview of this report.

View the Infographic

What OIG Recommends

OIG recommends that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) take the following steps to strengthen oversight of remote patient monitoring:

1. Implement additional safeguards to ensure that remote patient monitoring is used and billed appropriately in Medicare.
2. Require that remote patient monitoring be ordered and that information about the ordering provider be included on claims and encounter data for remote patient monitoring.
3. Develop methods to identify what health data are being monitored.
4. Conduct provider education about billing of remote patient monitoring.
5. Identify and monitor companies that bill for remote patient monitoring.

CMS concurred with or stated that it would take into consideration all our recommendations.