Commercial insurance begins for ReWalk with Spaulding patient
Courtesy of ReWalk
Cory Cook, a New Hampshire resident who suffered a spinal cord injury, trains on the ReWalk wearable exoskeleton at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston.
ReWalk Robotics, the first company to bring an exoskeleton to market after approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is celebrating a commercialization milestone that hits close to home today.
A New Hampshire man, Cory Cook, will take home his ReWalk system today, about three years after he was paralyzed from the chest down in a swimming accident. This marks the first case in which a commercial insurer in the United States has approved reimbursement for the ReWalk, which has a list price of $71,000.
“He will be walking around the streets of Massachusetts and New Hampshire in a few weeks,” said Larry Jasinski, CEO of Marlborough-based ReWalk, said in an interview Wednesday.
Cook was injured during his sister’s wedding reception in June 2012. He dove off a dock and hit the bottom of a lake, injuring his spinal cord. Doctors said it was unlikely Cook, now 35, would ever walk again.
But with the ReWalk, he’ll experience something like it. Cook has been training on the ReWalk for several months as a patient at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. ReWalk and Spaulding announced a partnership in December to make the ReWalk available to paraplegics through a training program. Spaulding hosted an event commemorating Cook’s coverage approval today in Boston.
“I think it’s a great product and I think it’s only going to get better,” said Cook, who works as a project engineer at a construction management firm and resides in Keene, N.H.
The ReWalk is a robotic system powered by a battery pack that operates using motion sensors. It allows users to walk upright and is an alternative to a wheelchair. But Cook predicted that as ReWalk continues to improve the product, it will become even lighter and more user-friendly than it is today.
Right now, he said it’s relatively easy to maneuver, compared to a clinical-stage exoskeleton he tested at Spaulding, and only requires him to carry about six extra pounds in the backpack that encases the battery. The rest of the system is self-supporting, he said.
More insurance coverage ahead?
The process of getting widespread commercial insurance coverage is still underway, however. Cook’s insurer is a “significant” commercial insurance company that provides coverage throughout New England, but ReWalk has not identified it. Jasinski said he hopes Cook’s case is a harbinger for many more to come; there are about 170 patients actively seeking coverage for the ReWalk system, he said.
“We hope that it becomes a trend, but it’s (done on) a case by case basis,” Jasinski said.
Patients interested in using a ReWalk system are not left to pursue coverage on their own, however. The company has established a reimbursement team that focuses on helping patients through the process of seeking insurance reimbursement.
Jasinski said demand for the product is “consistent,” but whether an insurer will accept a claim is hard to predict “because the system is so new, and they don’t know what to expect,” Jasinksi said.
Through the company’s first quarter, 11 insurance payers in Europe and the U.S. approved coverage of the ReWalk, including government-backed payers in Europe and private, non-commercial payers in the U.S. such as the Veterans Administration and workers compensation insurers.
Jasinski said it appears they’re issuing approvals slowly so they can observe how they improve a patient’s overall health, thereby reducing the overall cost of insuring the patient.
Jasinski is confident they’ll be pleased with the results.
“(The cost of a ReWalk) is not unusually high, and the long-term proposition here (is) that our data is increasingly supporting that we represent cost savings to the insurer,” Jasinski said.
For the sake of comparison to other options available for helping paraplegics with mobility, he estimated that a prosthetic leg system often used for paraplegics is reimbursed at around $44,000 per leg by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
And he said the benefits of being able to spend more time upright in a ReWalk system drive down costs created by such maladies as pressure sores patients develop from sitting for long periods of time in a wheelchair, and for medications that are often needed by patients who can’t stand.
Standing tall
Until today, Cook has only used the ReWalk two days per week while at Spaulding, and he can already see the difference it will make on his physical health. For one thing, he suffers from fewer muscle spasms while standing upright. And using the system helps regulate his blood pressure, which often becomes quite low while he’s wheelchair bound.
Cook said he will integrate the ReWalk mostly for use outside work. Because his hands need to be on crutches while he’s using it, it will be difficult to use it during the workday. But in social settings, he looks forward to being at eye-level with other people again.
“People that I’ve met since being in my wheelchair are very surprised at how tall I am,” Cook said. “It’s great being able to look somebody in the eyes … as you’re talking to them.
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