ReWalk Robotics Ltd. (DBA: Lifeward) is lauding the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) decision to provide Medicare coverage for personal exoskeletons.
In an April 12 announcement, ReWalk — which manufactures the ReWalk personal exoskeleton and the ReStore Exo-Suit, among other rehabilitation products — said, “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has officially revised its April 2024 Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies (DMEPOS) fee schedule to include a final lump-sum Medicare purchase fee schedule amount for personal exoskeletons with a ceiling-to-floor range from $109,238 to $81,929, and an established rate of $91,032 for each state. CMS states that it calculated this final payment amount by averaging pricing information for exoskeleton devices from Lifeward and other manufacturers.”
“This CMS publication finalizes the payment rate for the ReWalk Personal Exoskeleton for 2024, which importantly concludes all open items related to establishing Medicare benefit category assignment, coding, and reimbursement,” Larry Jasinski, CEO of Lifeward, said in the announcement. “With this clarity, physicians can now prescribe the ReWalk Personal Exoskeleton with confidence that Medicare patients will have an established reimbursement pathway, allowing us to accelerate the process of providing our devices to the people who need them.”
ReWalk reported that CMS determined Medicare payment amounts via gap filling “after CMS determined that lower-extremity exoskeletons incorporate ‘revolutionary features’ that cannot be described by any existing code or combination of codes.”
The reimbursement rate, ReWalk added, impacts Medicare claims with dates of service on or after April 1.
