Beyond Reimbursement: RPM for Clinical Team Scaling and Better Patient Outcomes

Last year, I had the pleasure of speaking with Healthcare IT News about the benefits and future of remote patient monitoring (RPM), as well as the imperative need for permanent RPM reimbursement reform. As we begin 2022, it’s still as important as ever to make this dream a reality.

Over the last few years of the public health emergency, in part due to temporary enhanced reimbursement policies, RPM technology has been critically relied on by patients and healthcare providers alike, enabling ongoing monitoring of patients outside of the traditional clinical setting and eliminating the need for non-essential in-person visits.

While permanent expanded reimbursements for virtual care models like RPM are important, it is good to remember why CMS created reimbursements for these models of care in the first place: to accelerate the adoption of technology that will drive improved patient outcomes–to accelerate the shift from volume to value-based care.

Scaling Clinical Teams and Improving Outcomes

Prior to COVID-19, the provider workforce was already shrinking with a projected primary care shortage of between 38,000 - 124,000 by 2034. Since the pandemic started, about 1 in 5 healthcare workers have left their job. At the same time, providers are being tasked with doing more with less as the focus on improving patient outcomes for value-based care models continues to increase.

Providers – from large health systems to small Federally Qualified Health Centers – are successfully navigating this charge with the Rimidi platform.

One example of this is our work with Leon Medical Centers, a leading healthcare services provider serving Medicare patients in South Florida. By implementing our newly-enhanced RPM platform, Leon Medical Centers was able to enable more personalized interventions for its highest risk T2D patients, and provide clinicians the ability to see a more holistic view of their patients within their existing workflow.

Since implementation, Leon Medical Centers has achieved the following:

• 88% of the 244 high-risk patients currently enrolled have lowered their A1c to less than 9%, a key indicator of better diabetes control
• 28 is the average number of blood-glucose readings per assigned device per month, which indicates high levels of patient engagement
• The center’s clinicians are better able to take action on approximately 85% of “missing blood-glucose data” alerts, ensuring that patients are reminded to take their readings

Importantly, all of the nearly 250 patients enrolled are managed by one clinician. The Rimidi platform is integrated with Leon’s Epic Hyperspace EMR, streamlining configurable alerts to the clinician within their existing workflow.

FQHCs: Doing More with Less

In addition, Rimidi is proud to partner with multiple FQHCs nationwide to ensure that medically underserved patient populations are benefiting from digital health and care delivery innovations that improve access to care, quality of care and ultimately clinical outcomes.

Perhaps even more than other providers, FQHCs need to be able to care for higher-risk patients with fewer resources, and we will continue to advocate alongside our FQHC partners for permanent funding mechanisms for virtual models of care like RPM to support this need.

We know RPM works, and we will continue to work alongside these centers as they seek to further improve patient care and clinical workflows through innovative technologies.

To dive deeper into the results achieved from our work with Leon Medical Center, check out this media feature.

To learn more about Rimidi’s RPM platform and the results we can achieve for your center, please contact a member of our team today.