Article Highlights
- Physicians can improve the patient care experience through the new Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) program.
- The RPM program has unique physician medical billing requirements.
- PMB can provide you with outsourced medical billing to ensure that your billings are accurate and that you receive payment for RPM services.
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One of the newest programs administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is designed to use the latest technology to help improve the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries, especially individuals with chronic conditions.
This new program, Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), was introduced by CMS in 2018 as a means to help physicians better monitor the health of their patients during day-to-day life. The RPM program aims to expand the typical patient care experience from scattered, in-office visits to continuous, involved patient care away from the office.
For physicians that provide remote patient monitoring services, there are unique billing requirements to ensure that you receive payment for this service. Let’s first examine how the RPM program works and then look further into how billing works for remote patient monitoring.
How Does Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Work?
Many physicians are unaware of the RPM program or have yet to embrace this opportunity because of the technology requirements, challenges with set-up, difficulty to get patients to embrace this shift, the lack of office staff to support this program, and confusion over the reimbursement rules.
Because the program is in its infancy, CMS is still working out the preliminary medical billing challenges aligning the services provided with their reimbursement policies. In fact, CMS has included a new category of codes for RPM services in their proposed 2022 Physician Fee Schedule.
One of the keys to the program is that patients need to have at least one chronic condition to participate because RPM is administered under CMS’s Chronic Care Management Services. Once a patient qualifies for RPM, then physicians can set up a continuous care program for the patient that will primarily occur in the comfort of the patient’s own home.
Billing for Remote Patient Monitoring Services
As part of the RPM program, physicians can perform reimbursable services such as telemonitoring, as well as provide equipment such as a scale or blood pressure monitor so a patient can perform regular readings in their home.
If the healthcare equipment that is used in the patient’s home is Bluetooth-enabled or has other connectivity capabilities, then the devices will send a reading directly to your office so that you can monitor the patient’s latest developments.
In order for physicians to receive payment for these services, you need to have at least 16 readings per month. You can also bill for calls and follow-ups discussing the latest developments with the patient.
From a physician’s perspective, one of the added advantages of this program is that physicians do not have to perform this service every time. Nurses or other qualified medical practitioners can monitor the results and participate in follow-ups to check on the patient’s health.
Is Remote Patient Monitoring the Future of Healthcare?
To capture the emergence of the RPM trend in healthcare, traditional technology retailers such as Best Buy are now getting involved in the at-home-care space.
Best Buy recently acquired a company that offers remote patient monitoring, telehealth, and patient engagement services. Best Buy said in their announcement that they want to play a bigger role in virtual care delivery. RPM certainly appears to be part of the future of healthcare.
To keep up with the emergence of RPM, though, physicians need a greater level of support. Most physicians are not in the position to add staff or increase staff responsibilities to monitor patients remotely as part of this program.
Additionally, billing for these services requires a greater level of understanding and training to ensure that you receive payment. To ensure accurate medical billings for RPM, you need to work with a leader in medical billing services, Precision Medical Billing (PMB).
Contact PMB for Remote Patient Monitoring Billing Support
Whether you currently offer remote patient monitoring services, are thinking about introducing this service, or are just now learning about RPM, we can help you with the billing aspect to ensure that you are reimbursed by Medicare for services provided.
Our expert team can work with your office to alleviate the administrative burden of handling RPM billings, or we can completely take this off your plate through our outsourced medical billing service.
Our expert team of medical billers ensures accuracy in billings so that your practice can collect every dollar that you are entitled to. Working with PMB, we will handle revenue collections so that your practice can focus on providing quality care to patients in a remote environment.
– Contact us today to schedule a medical billing consultation with our team. Let’s discuss the opportunity to support your provision of remote patient monitoring services to your patients.
