Owlet is bringing its infant vitals monitoring product directly to caregivers through a new partnership with popular telehealth engine Wheel, it announced Thursday.
Together, the companies will provide a rapid access telehealth prescription of Owlet’s FDA-cleared pulse oximeter, BabySat. The device requires a prescription, which the company says it can offer through the Wheel-powered telehealth service in as few as four hours.
With the device, a caregiver can monitor their child’s vitals and clinicians can complete periodic assessments or continuous monitoring for infants at home who may have had a prior complication and spent time in the intensive care unit.
Wheel provides a pre-built virtual care platform and nationwide clinician network that enables healthcare companies to scale up telehealth services in weeks and bypass hefty investment, Wheel told Fierce Healthcare in 2022.
Owlet says the telehealth partnership is critical for underserved and minority communities to access their devices due to the nationwide provider shortage.
“This shortage disproportionately affects caregivers from racial and ethnic minorities, as well as those in rural and lower-income areas. Since its inception, Owlet's mission has been to ensure that every baby, regardless of background or location, has access to affordable and accessible healthcare solutions,” Jim Fidacaro, Owlet senior vice president and general manager of healthcare, said in an email.
A press release by Owlet says the prescription will come “at little to no cost with insurance reimbursement.” The product is not yet available through Medicaid, but Fidacaro said Medicaid coverage is one of the company’s top priorities.
Regulators have been skeptical of online prescribing of medical devices. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General released a report in December 2023 that revealed fraudulent remote monitoring schemes linked to durable medical equipment and high-cost lab tests billed to Medicare.
When asked how the company intends to maintain the integrity of its direct-to-consumer telehealth prescriptions, Fidacaro pointed to the company’s verification procedure to confirm the identities of caregivers and their relationship to the infant.