Yes, there is an ongoing battle between healthcare providers who want to be able to "fix" medical device software themselves (as opposed to having to pay the manufacturer's service fee) and the manufacturers, who insist that only they can service their software effectively (and who want the service fees). So far, I side with the manufacturers on this, as the lesser of two evils.
It sounds like this article was written to support the manufacturers, probably not coincidentally by an author affiliated with a university healthcare system instead of a corporate-owned healthcare system.