Tactile Medical uses heat maps to drive payer policy changes

MINNEAPOLIS – Tactile Medical, a developer of at-home therapy devices for lymphedema and chronic venous insufficiency, is leveraging heat maps to highlight gaps in access to care and influence commercial payers to adopt less restrictive medical policies for advanced pneumatic compression devices.

The goal, says Devin De Lozier, director of strategic accounts at Tactile Medical: to convince payers to improve access through policy changes.

“In 2025, we achieved more positive medical policy changes making pneumatic compression medical necessary than in the previous 10 years combined,” he said, “because we showed payers not only the clinical information and studies but also the health equity piece that exists for this population.”

This strategy has led to improved policies by major payers, including Aetna, Cigna, Kaiser, and numerous Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, impacting more than 100 million insureds.

Adding health equity to the conversation

Traditionally, Tactile Medical relied on clinical research and patient advocacy to influence policy, De Lozier said. The company introduced heat maps after a payer emphasized the importance of health equity.

"They wanted to know about patients that don’t have access to care – even drilling down to a minority population, like African American women, who have a high incidence of breast cancer,” he said. “They said if we could paint a picture that shows disparity in care, we think can move the needle.”

Visualizing disparities in care

The heat maps display key data: the lymphedema population in a state, the number of certified lymphedema therapists (CLTs), patients per CLT, average appointment time, and average wait time post-diagnosis. Color coding highlights access levels:

• Green: 3 or fewer patients per clinician
• Yellow: 4–7 patients
• Red: 8 or more patients

“It’s shocking to see,” De Lozier said. “When we meet with the medical policy committee (of a payer), they don't know this is the case. We’re talking about patients who have to travel two to three to four hours to get treated.”

The cost advantage of home care

Once payers see the heat map, Tactile Medical emphasizes the value of pneumatic compression devices in reducing costs by keeping patients at home.

“You decrease your overall spend on that population,” he said.

A model for other DME markets

Tactile Medical believes this approach could benefit other durable medical equipment (DME) sectors, such as respiratory and ostomy care.

“If you include this type of information in your presentations and communication with payers, it could be a vital piece to improving medical policy,” De Lozier said.