House Passes 5-Year Hospital at Home Extension

The House passes a bill extending CMS waivers for hospital at home programs for five years, providing certainty for acute care delivery innovation.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed bipartisan legislation to extend critical Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) waivers for "hospital at home" programs for an additional five years, through 2030. The bill provides long-term regulatory certainty for a care model that allows patients to receive acute inpatient-level treatment in their own homes, an innovation that proved its value during the pandemic. This move signals a major step toward permanently integrating hospital at home into the U.S.

 system, addressing hospital capacity constraints and aligning with patient preferences for decentralized care.

This five-year extension starkly contrasts with the short-term, emergency-based waivers that initially enabled these programs. The House's action demonstrates a legislative commitment to fostering care innovation that improves outcomes and reduces costs. This matters because it provides the stability needed for health systems and technology providers to invest confidently in the remote monitoring infrastructure, clinical workflows, and value-based care partnerships required to scale the model effectively. The bill is a formal endorsement of moving high-acuity care beyond the traditional hospital walls.

For health system CEOs, investors in digital health, and policymakers, this legislative progress is a pivotal market signal. It necessitates strategic planning for significant shifts in capital allocation away from brick-and-mortar bed expansion and toward home-based acute care capabilities. The forward-looking insight is clear: the future of healthcare will be increasingly distributed. Passage by the Senate would trigger a wave of investment and partnership activity, accelerating the convergence of traditional hospital medicine with remote patient monitoring and telehealth, and forcing a re-evaluation of the very definition of a "hospital bed" for the 21st century.