{"id":588172,"date":"2026-04-16T17:58:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588172\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:58:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:58:21","slug":"cms-proposes-rolling-back-breakthrough-device-payment-flexibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588172\/","title":{"rendered":"CMS proposes rolling back breakthrough device payment flexibilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"author-bio\">Katie Palmer covers telehealth, clinical artificial intelligence, and the health data economy \u2014 with an emphasis on the impacts of digital health care for patients, providers, and businesses. You can reach Katie on Signal at palmer.01.<\/p>\n<p>The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is proposing to repeal a pathway that currently allows breakthrough devices to qualify for supplementary payments without proving they provide a substantial clinical improvement over alternatives.<\/p>\n<p>Access to lifesaving new technologies can be stymied when hospitals don\u2019t get paid enough to cover their costs. So since 2001, Medicare has given innovative devices a chance at extra payments when they meet three criteria: they\u2019re new and different from what\u2019s currently available, they offer a clinical improvement over existing options, and they\u2019re especially costly.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2021, devices that receive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/feature\/stat-plus\/breakthrough-device-designation-fda-tracker\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">breakthrough designation<\/a> from the Food and Drug and Administration have gotten an even sweeter deal: In order to qualify for the extra payments, they only have to demonstrate they\u2019re expensive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-text\">STAT+ Exclusive Story<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-login\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"restricted-content-breaker-bg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765280600_844_stat-plus-breaker-bg.png\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"stat-plus-logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tThis article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tUnlock this article \u2014 and get additional analysis of the technologies disrupting health care \u2014 by subscribing to STAT+.<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-breaker-wrapper-cta mobile\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta mobile\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tIndividual plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tGroup plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button view-all\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker view all plans\" aria-label=\"View All Plans\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">View All Plans<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-text\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTo read the rest of this story subscribe to STAT+.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button restricted-button\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker subscribe cta 1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Katie Palmer covers telehealth, clinical artificial intelligence, and the health data economy \u2014 with an emphasis on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[10212,97,252,37583,253,10653,248],"class_list":{"0":"post-588172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-cms","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-health-tech","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-medical-devices","14":"tag-stat"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}