# Medicare built a shortcut for breakthrough devices. Now it wants to close it without checking if it worked. - Date: 2026-04-16 - Category: Biotech & Life Sciences CMS created a faster Medicare payment pathway for breakthrough devices in 2021. It has paid out roughly $464M a year through that pathway. It never tracked whether the devices helped patients. Now it wants to eliminate the pathway before anyone asks what was on the other side. ---