Let remote monitoring provide the modern-era house call, and other letters

Regarding “When patients need house calls, there may be no doctors nearby,” remote monitoring solutions of patients' vital signs and wellness indicators can ameliorate many of the discussed issues. Also, payers are now entertaining reimbursement of these monitoring platforms. The CMS now does so for a specific patient set. The monitoring doesn't have to become a burden for primary-care providers because it can be reviewed by secondary, qualified triage-level staff, observing from afar. When necessary, the trained observer can involve the appropriate clinicians. Watchful waiting leverages this technology without additional burden to the undersupply of providers and to the direct benefit of patients and their family members.

Rik Warren

Sensogram Technologies

Plano, Texas

Regarding the article “Delivering new bundles to control cost of maternal care,” the chart based on data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project is somewhat misleading. The title “Childbirth is among the most expensive services provided by U.S. hospitals” is not supported by the data cited. Childbirth is among the diagnoses accounting for the largest share of all payments to hospitals, but this does not make it among the most expensive. Using the word expensive implies it's the most costly to the individual or even to insurers, on an individual unit basis, not that it's the most expensive at an aggregate level.

Lubbock, Texas