CMS proposes banning outsourced staffing for remote patient monitoring

Plus: Comment window on CY2027 dialysis rate closes today, phosphate binder detail revealed. The day's rules, money, and enforcement, sourced and tiered below.

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Plus: Comment window on CY2027 dialysis rate closes today, phosphate binder detail revealed. The day's rules, money, and enforcement, sourced and tiered below.

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The Service Line Monday, August 24, 2026
CMS proposes banning outsourced staffing for remote patient monitoring
Plus: Comment window on CY2027 dialysis rate closes today, phosphate binder detail revealed. The day's rules, money, and enforcement, sourced and tiered below.
Rule  Confidence: High
Medicare just proposed banning the outsourced staffing model that many chronic kidney disease remote monitoring programs run on, a change nephrology practices and their value-based partners need to plan for now.
CMS's CY2027 fee schedule proposal would require RPM and RTM monitoring staff to be direct employees of the billing practice, not contractors, plus new visit requirements. Comments close September 14, 2026.
Why it matters
This could reshape how conditions like chronic kidney disease are remotely monitored, since programs built on outsourced monitoring vendors may have to restructure or shut down. Watch whether the direct employment mandate survives to the final rule.
Sources: CMS · Federal Register
Rule  Confidence: High
The public comment window on Medicare's proposed 2027 dialysis payment rate closes today, and a detail in the rule shows nearly $16 of the increase is just the cost of a drug accounting change.
CMS's CY2027 ESRD PPS rule would raise the dialysis base rate to $299.55 a treatment. $15.96 of that increase reflects folding phosphate binders into the bundled payment for the first time.
Why it matters
This determines how much Medicare pays dialysis facilities per treatment next year, and a chunk of the increase is really a drug cost accounting shift rather than new money. Watch whether the $15.96 phosphate binder add on survives to the final rule expected around late October or November.
Sources: CMS · Federal Register
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