Pathway to Insurance Coverage for Healthcare Wearable Technology

CareBand is a healthcare wearable technology company that strives to reduce death and injuries due to dementia-related wandering and to keep patients with dementia living safe, independent lives. It does so by deploying location and activity monitoring technology and leveraging behavioral and health analytics. While CareBand seeks to expand into the home care market, insurance plans do not currently cover its wearable technology. The client engaged the Capstone team to research how new medical devices are approved for insurance coverage and to develop a business case for its wearable device technology. The team reviewed the medical device market and evaluated the steps undertaken by existing medical device companies to obtain FDA approval. Further, the team conducted an assessment of current insurance trends and interviews with insurance companies nationwide. The team developed two market research reports, a toolkit with insights from its interviews, and a business case for CareBand to use while engaging with prospective insurance partners.