New Medicare Law Opens the Door for mHealth Startups

The medical industry has been under seige by the tech sector for a decade now — but updates to Medicare law coming in 2017 could open the floodgate for mHealth solutions.

While the rest of the world uses mobile apps and cutting-edge hardware to make life easier and more efficient, visits to the doctor’s office often feel like time traveling back to the 80s.

Paperwork, non-digitized records, informal patient monitoring — the list of problems for tech-friendly patients in a tech-unfriendly medical practice is a long one.

Failing to partner with mobile app developers and tech companies is merely an inconvenience when you consider the money and time wasted. But what about patients who could have lived — or lived a better life — with something as simple as a fitness tracker relaying info to a doctor, or a medical app managing personal data and medicine?

In some cases, the medical industry’s resistance to MedTech can literally cost lives by making preventative medicine and health monitoring affordable and simple for users who otherwise can’t afford regular visits.

New Medicare laws coming in 2017 promise to fix that, and leading tech companies across the US have submitted comments on the proposed laws to make sure patients can get access to everything tech has to offer. Dogtown Media is proud to stand alongside the American Heart Association, Qualcomm, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research as a signatory, promoting a positive partnership between tech and the medical industry.

Among the key proposals mHealthcare app developers are pushing for in the new Medicare policy are:

• Expansion of the Telehealth Services List
• Greater use of Connected Health Technology in Treatment of Patients with Chronic Conditions
• Expansion of the Diabetes Prevention Program

However the comments from the tech community are received, new legislation is guaranteed to catalyze a major shift in the mHealth space.

New York City mobile app developers can expect thousands of new startups to race into the medical field, solving problems for patients and doctors alike — forever changing the medical industry.