Comment by tombert
Sure. I guess I would draw the line in a different place.
There are plenty of things that aren't strictly "necessary" but are still provided by insurance. My wife's painkiller medication isn't strictly necessary, she wouldn't die without it and the leg would probably heal the same way, but they covered that because obviously they should cover that. I feel like a piece of medical equipment like a CPM machine is more necessary than painkillers.
Well first question to my mind is does a CPM actually help? There's a lot of waste in American Healthcare on expensive but fairly useless treatments.
My guess was that a CPM might fall into this category (I did PhD research in bio mechanics in MatSci). So I googled it and it returned a quote:
> Do doctors still use CPM machines? > The machines are no longer widely used because of the multiple studies that found CPM following knee replacement surgery has minimal benefits. However, some surgeons still recommend CPM following knee surgery when the limited pros outweigh the cons in a particular case. (1)
From an insurers perspective it makes sense not to cover a marginally useful piece of equipment. The better use of resources would probably be covering PT where there's movement and weight on the joint.
1: https://www.verywellhealth.com/do-i-need-a-cpm-following-kne...