Rural Patient Monitoring (RPM) Access Act
Sponsored By: Senator Marsha Blackburn
Introduced
Summary
Guarantees a minimum Medicare payment rate for remote physiologic monitoring (RPM) in rural areas and creates new quality and reporting rules to support its use. It would raise practice expense and malpractice geographic indices for RPM to at least 1.00 and require providers to meet standards for data response, EHR transmission, and reporting to measure cost savings.
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- Rural Medicare beneficiaries: Would gain stronger support for remote monitoring of chronic conditions, which aims to reduce travel burdens and help catch problems earlier.
- RPM providers and small practices: Payments for RPM furnished on or after Jan 1, 2026 would be adjusted so practice expense and malpractice indices cannot be below 1.00, and small practices may qualify for exceptions to some quality requirements.
- Program oversight and evaluation: Providers must respond to data anomalies, send captured vitals and treatment notes to supervising clinicians' electronic health records, and submit data so the Secretary can analyze estimated savings; a report to Congress is required within two years.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
1 provisions identified: 1 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
More Medicare remote monitoring in rural areas
If enacted, the bill would define what counts as remote physiologic monitoring for Medicare. It would require RPM providers to respond to abnormal data, send captured vitals and treatment notes into the supervising provider's electronic health record, and collect and report data the HHS Secretary needs to study cost savings. For RPM furnished on or after January 1, 2026, the bill would raise any practice expense or malpractice geographic index below 1.00 up to 1.00 when calculating RPM payments. That index increase would not have to be offset by cuts elsewhere. The Secretary could make exceptions for small medical practices.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Marsha Blackburn
TN • R
Cosponsors
Mark Warner
VA • D
Sponsored 4/30/2025
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
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