Beyond the CPT Codes: Remote Patient Monitoring as a Bridge to Value-Based Care
Remote Patient Monitoring adoption has exploded in the last five years, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but largely because of new CPT codes introduced for RPM in 2019, which allowed providers to be reimbursed for offering this proactive model of care.
The opportunity for practices to boost their revenue ushered in hundreds of new RPM vendors, and unprecedented growth in the RPM market – which is expected to jump from $51 Billion today to over $350 Billion in 2030. For good reason, many RPM solutions are built around not just helping practices offer RPM to their patients, but ensuring they can easily capture all the required information necessary for billing.
While capturing RPM activity for billing is a crucial part of today’s RPM landscape, it’s important to remember why the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced CPT codes for RPM in the first place: to create a bridge for healthcare providers to get from practicing fee-for-service care to more proactive, outcomes-focused care. In fact, CMS has established a goal to have 100% of Medicare beneficiaries and a large majority of Medicaid beneficiaries in some type of accountable or value-based care arrangement by 2030.
Today’s reimbursement codes provide a way to transition to practicing outcomes-focused care, while recognizing that practices need to continue to generate revenue and build new workflow and staffing models for a value-based future. In this blog, we will outline what that future looks like and how RPM plays an important role.
The Benefits of RPM for Value-Based Care
Value-Based Care focuses on delivering high-quality, cost-effective healthcare by improving patient outcomes and reducing unnecessary healthcare utilization. RPM aligns well with these goals by offering several benefits that contribute to the success of VBC. Here are some ways in which RPM is good for Value-Based Care:
Enhanced patient outcomes: RPM allows healthcare providers to continue to monitor patients outside of traditional healthcare settings, providing ongoing access to valuable patient data. This enables early detection of potential health issues, timely intervention, and personalized care. By closely monitoring patients, healthcare providers can proactively manage chronic conditions, prevent complications, and improve overall patient outcomes.
Reduced hospital readmissions: One of the key metrics in VBC is reducing hospital readmissions. RPM enables continued monitoring of patients after hospital discharge, allowing healthcare providers to identify and address early warning signs of deterioration. Patient needs can be addressed at home or they may be brought back to the clinic, both of which are more cost-effective care settings as well as preferred by patients and their families. Through timely interventions and remote care management, RPM helps prevent unnecessary hospital readmissions, resulting in cost savings and improved patient experiences.
Cost savings: Value-Based Care models aim to control healthcare costs while maintaining or improving quality of care. RPM contributes to cost savings by reducing avoidable healthcare utilization and associated expenses. With remote monitoring, healthcare providers can identify issues early on, prevent emergency department visits, and reduce the length of hospital stays. Overall, RPM facilitates the shift from reactive to proactive care, focusing on prevention and early intervention, which can lead to better management of chronic conditions and decreased healthcare costs in the long run.
Improved Patient Satisfaction: Further, RPM empowers patients to take a more active role in their own care and to feel more supported by their healthcare team. . In fact,in a patient survey conducted with Rimidi client Desert Oasis Healthcare, 70% of patients said they felt better about their ability to manage their chronic condition because of Remote Patient Monitoring.
Overall, Remote Patient Monitoring supports the principles of Value-Based Care by improving patient outcomes, reducing healthcare utilization, empowering patients, and arming clinicians with better data to proactively manage their patients’ outcomes.
Rimidi Was Built for Value-Based Care
The Rimidi platform is built to support the fee-for-service needs of today while preparing your organization for a value-based future. Rimidi was founded in 2012 and has been supporting healthcare providers with RPM solutions long before the COVID-19 pandemic or reimbursement codes. Our solution has evolved with updates to the reimbursement landscape and as connected devices continue to get more sophisticated.
Rimidi works within EHRs and combines patient-generated data from connected devices and Patient Reported Outcomes surveys with relevant, condition-specific clinical data from the EHR into problem-oriented modules that allow for better chronic disease management.
To learn more about how Rimidi can support your practice—whether you are fee-for-service or value-based—watch our recent webinar: “Remote Patient Monitoring: The Reimbursable Bridge to Value-based Care, or request a demo below!
