Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is one of healthcare’s recent success stories. Across the country, a steadily growing number of physicians are using connected devices to help their patients stay on track between visits. The results speak for themselves: fewer hospitalizations, earlier interventions, and patients who feel more engaged in their own care. Extensive clinical research has consistently shown that RPM is effective, especially in the context of hypertension.
That’s why UnitedHealthcare’s (UHC) latest announcement has caught us off guard. We’ve received information that starting Jan. 1, 2026, the nation’s largest private insurer will dramatically scale back which conditions qualify for RPM coverage and reimbursement. Going forward, only patients with heart failure or hypertensive disorders during pregnancy will be covered by the insurer for remote monitoring. Everyone else, including the millions managing chronic hypertension, diabetes, or COPD, will lose RPM coverage altogether.
The change applies to UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan and UnitedHealthcare commercial plan members.
What the RPM Policy Means in Practice
For providers serving UnitedHealthcare patients, the policy may sound small on paper, but it has major consequences in reality. RPM, which includes reimbursement for device setup and management, data transmission, time spent reviewing patient data and providing feedback, will now only be billable for two qualifying conditions: heart failure and gestational hypertension.
That means clinicians who have built RPM into chronic care workflows will have to make tough choices: stop remote monitoring of UnitedHealthcare patients, absorb the cost, or move these patients into a different program like chronic care management (CCM) or advanced primary care management (APCM) — neither of which reimburse for device setup or management.
In its announcement, UHC frames the decision as an “alignment with clinical evidence.” But that explanation doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The clinical evidence for RPM in hypertension and diabetes is overwhelming, with peer-reviewed studies repeatedly showing reduced emergency visits, better medication adherence, and improved outcomes. Recent research illustrates this clearly:
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Emergency department follow-up: An RPM program spanning 10 hospitals offered remote monitoring to nearly 110,000 patients discharged from the emergency department. About one in four enrolled. Those who participated were less likely to return to the ED within 90 days, and over the following year had a 16% lower likelihood of readmission. Even with modest participation, the impact was significant, showing the real potential of RPM to prevent repeat visits when adoption increases.
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Medicare hypertension outcomes: In a cohort of 3,403 Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in an RPM program with care coaching, participants saw meaningful and sustained improvements. Among those with stage 2 hypertension, average blood pressure dropped from 152/85 mm Hg to 132/74 mm Hg over 12 months, and the proportion meeting stage 2 criteria fell from 100% to 25%. Even patients who remained hypertensive showed significant reductions, underscoring RPM’s ability to drive measurable blood pressure control in Medicare populations.
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Newly diagnosed Type 2 diabetes outcomes: In a retrospective cohort of 35,958 adults with newly diagnosed diabetes, remote glucose monitoring users achieved markedly better control than non-users. After adjustment, RPM participation was linked to a 23% higher likelihood of reaching HbA1c ≤ 8% and, among patients starting above 8%, a 0.93% greater average HbA1c reduction. The findings highlight RPM’s ability to improve early disease management and long-term glycemic outcomes.
Evidence from multiple chronic diseases points in the same direction: remote monitoring helps patients stay healthier and reduces avoidable utilization. Rather than narrowing access, most payers are moving to build on these gains. Even many state Medicaid programs that once had condition-specific restrictions have recently lifted them, expanding access to RPM instead of cutting it back.
Everyone Else Is Moving Forward
At a time when Medicare and most state Medicaid programs are expanding support for RPM, UnitedHealthcare’s rollback feels like swimming against the tide. The federal government has made it clear that connected care is part of the future — not a temporary pandemic experiment.
In 2025, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reaffirmed its commitment to expanding RPM access and even proposed two new codes to fill gaps in shorter-term monitoring. These are expected to be finalized in the 2026 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule final rule.
UHC’s shift breaks from that consensus. For a company that covers tens of millions of lives, such a restriction has ripple effects. Practices that depend on RPM to manage hypertension or diabetes, two of the most common and costly chronic conditions in the U.S., will be forced to scale back services to UnitedHealthcare patients — services proven to help prevent hospital admissions and improve quality of life.
The Real Cost of Cutting RPM Coverage
The irony is hard to ignore. Limiting RPM may reduce claims (and costs) for UHC in the short term, but it does so at the expense of preventive care and patient outcomes. Providers who’ve spent years proving that remote monitoring can help avoid heart attacks, strokes, and readmissions now face a reimbursement wall.
For patients, this change means less connection with their care teams, fewer touchpoints, and more risk. Many who rely on daily or weekly feedback and trend analysis will lose that safety net. Over time, that means more acute events and higher long-term costs — the very issues RPM was designed to solve.
The policy will also likely face questions about its compliance with Medicare Advantage regulations. UnitedHealthcare’s decision appears aimed at short-term cost control and limiting utilization before RPM adoption expands further. But cost containment is not care improvement, and the data make that clear. Even setting patient outcomes aside, UHC may soon regret footing the bill for high-cost, acute events that could have been prevented by lower-cost RPM services.
What Comes Next — and Why It Matters
In all likelihood, this story isn’t over. UnitedHealthcare’s policy could face actuarial or regulatory challenges, and provider advocacy will only intensify. Competing insurers that maintain or expand their RPM coverage may use this moment to differentiate themselves, positioning comprehensive remote monitoring as a standard of quality care.
From our vantage point at Prevounce Health, UHC’s announcement is a step backward at a time when healthcare should be moving forward. RPM isn’t just a billing mechanism; it’s a clinically validated bridge between office visits and a tool that empowers patients and supports providers in delivering proactive care.
We expect this decision to create confusion and frustration for both providers and patients, but it also highlights something bigger: the ongoing tension between short-term financial pressures and long-term clinical value. Healthcare has spent decades talking about prevention; RPM is one of the few areas where prevention is measurable, scalable, and proven. Cutting it off undermines the entire premise of value-based care.
As 2026 approaches, providers should:
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Review UnitedHealthcare’s updated RPM policy in detail.
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Identify patients likely to lose coverage and consider CCM or APCM alternatives.
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Continue documenting and publishing real-world RPM success stories to help keep the evidence front and center.
Because in the end, when the data show that RPM keeps patients healthier, reduces hospitalizations, and saves costs, the right policy direction becomes obvious.
Learn What Medicare’s 2026 PFS Means for the Expansion of Remote Patient Monitoring
I will discuss key remote care management changes included in the PFS final rule, along with broader developments shaping care management in 2026 and beyond, in our upcoming webinar, "Understanding Medicare's 2026 Changes to Remote Care Management" on November 20, 2025, at 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT. I encourage you to register here.