Whoop gets full Medicare payment only if patients' blood pressure, A1C and LDL improve or stay controlled

Bhatt's case for older patients is about how easy it is to share data. Surveys suggest, she said, that even the oldest patients, the Silent Generation now past 80, trust the clinicians who treat them with their data ^[3]. "It's not that they're averse to giving data," she said. "It's how easy can we make it for that population to be able to share their data." ^[4] She put "simplification of the app" at number one on the roadmap ^[5]. Whoop is also working with the National Council on Aging and AARP on personalizing the product to older adults' individual priorities ^[6].

The payment design puts the first year on the company. "Whoop takes responsibility for, in 12 months, I am going to make these people better," Bhatt said ^[7]. Medicare pays the participating companies based on their health outcomes ^[9]. Bhatt said her role is to help a company that sold a product intentionally binned as wellness develop and demonstrate outcomes closer to clinical practice ^[13]. Whoop's recent $575 million raise drew investors including Mayo Clinic and Qatar's sovereign wealth fund ^[19].

Users check the app eight times a day on average, Bhatt said ^[14]. She also noted that research on continuous glucose monitors, the original wearable for diabetes, suggests engagement does not necessarily translate to better health outcomes ^[15]. Her answer is outcomes: Whoop has shown, she said, a decrease of five millimeters of mercury in blood pressure in individuals on Whoop ^[22].

The thing this doesn't tell you is who those individuals were, how many there were, or what they were compared with. STAT describes Whoop's customer base as mostly young and fit, and says the company has never been known for marketing to an older population ^[16]. If the five-millimeter result came from people like that, it is a weak forecast for Medicare patients 65 and up with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity or prediabetes. We would want the age range, the denominator and a comparison group before leaning on it. STAT's account does not describe the underlying study, what the simplified app will change, or when it ships.

Bhatt also described the limits of continuous data from the exam room. "I had some really great patients who would print out binders of their wearable data," she said ^[17]. She said that despite her interest and the patient's engagement, the data was impossible to handle in a 20-minute visit ^[18].