Is a senior safety net worth $9,000 a year?

Will baby boomers pay $9,000 a year to have a computer and a nurse watch over their parents' health from a distance?

That's the question for Dovetail Health , a new company in Needham that began recruiting customers this month. Currently testing its service in 10 homes, the company aims to provide a safety net for senior citizens living on their own by tracking their vital signs over a phone line.

Dovetail represents the newest entry in the small but growing are a of healthcare called "remote monitoring." After personal visits from a nurse and a pharmacist, the seniors in Dovetail's pilot program each receive a small computer monitor hooked up to their phone line, serving as a hub for a network of devices. Every day they weigh themselves on a wireless scale and take their blood pressure with a cuff. An assistant watches the numbers as they appear in the company's office in Needham, and a nurse can call or visit if anything looks out of line.

Such devices have been available for several years, used chiefly by home-nursing services caring for patients with chronic illnesses. Several electronics companies, seeing a boom in the aging population, have started manufacturing the systems. But the industry's growth has been stymied by the knotty issue of who should pay for the monitoring.

Medicare and insurers generally don't make special payments for home-health monitors, offering only flat fees to help patients recuperate from hospital visits. The home-nursing division of the Partners HealthCare system has installed remote monitors for about 100 patients, but must stop the service when their Medicare home-nursing payments run out. In Natick, the local Visiting Nurse Association has installed monitors in about 80 patients' houses, and says the program has succeeded in catching minor problems long before they become critical. But the association can afford the devices only with a grant from a healthcare foundation.

Dovetail is pitching a different angle: Fundamentally healthy seniors may be willing to open their own checkbooks if it helps them stay out of a nursing home. And their children might pay, too, just to buy some piece of mind.

"For adult children, it's like, 'I'm worried about Mom and Dad. I need some oversight,' " said Stever Aubrey, who founded the company this year.

For a $750 monthly fee, Dovetail offers a medication consultant, occasional nurse visits, and 24-hour phone help.

Leslie Hoyt , Dovetail's chief care officer, said that in four months of testing with 10 patients, the company has already found a number of small but crucial areas where it could benefit clients. In one case, a company review found a client was taking twice as many pills as prescribed; in another, a visiting nurse suggested ways to rearrange the house to make falls less likely. And another client simply needed to find a local aide to help her chop vegetables.

"It's different and unique with every single client," said Hoyt.

Joseph Coughlin , who researches the intersection of aging and technology at MIT, said elderly people represent "the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity on the block" for new ideas such as remote monitoring. But the obstacles are both financial -- he called Dovetail's concept "an interesting idea for the higher end" -- and psychological.

"For every bit of security it provides you, it takes away that much more independence," he said.

"The company and technology that strikes that balance first and best, that will be the winning business model."

With just 15 employees, including four full-time nurses and one pharmacist, Dovetail is planning a slow rollout, mailing 1,000 glossy brochures a week to seniors in Wellesley, Newton, Brookline, and Needham. The company is also meeting with doctors' groups, both to pitch the service and explain that it operates alongside, not instead of, patients' normal medical care.

If the idea takes off, says Aubrey, he hopes to line up insurers willing to cover it.

"If we can feel as though we can really change the way people manage aging in America," he said, "that makes you feel pretty good."

Stephen Heuser can be reached at sheuser@globe.com.