Telehealth & Remote Patient Monitoring: The Complete, Everything You Need to Know Guide

David Medeiros
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The all-in-one overview that answers all of your questions about remote patient monitoring, telehealth and how to implement it at your clinic or practice.

Telehealth & Remote Patient Monitoring - A Simple Breakdown

Telehealth is a complex industry. With countless providers, platforms, and features now saturating the market for telehealth services, it can be difficult to decide where to start with implementing a Telehealth program.

Buzzwords, high-tech jargon, and non-transparent service propositions are now constantly inundating physicians and clinics. Because of this, implementing a remote health program can seem like an overwhelming, out of reach possibility for clinics and practitioners.

We’re here to dispel that myth, and to take the fear and uncertainty out of Telehealth implementation. We want to make Telehealth accessible to anyone considering it for their practice or clinic, and give them a realistic breakdown of what to expect.

This guide will take the confusion and complication out of Telehealth terms, services, and application potential. It will provide transparent, comprehensive breakdowns of the key areas needed to understand, and successfully implement, an Telehealth program at any clinic or practice, of any size.

From devices, billing codes, and technology, to long-term scalability and program management, we’ve covered everything you need to know about Telehealth deployment.

This all-in-one overview will include an explanation of why Telehealth is important for the future of care provision, how to implement an Telehealth program at your clinic, and steps to take in choosing the right service provider to achieve success with Telehealth.

What is Telehealth & Remote Patient Monitoring?

First, let’s define Telehealth, and provide a clear frame of reference for all sections to come. Telehealth refers to the collection of patient metrics, including blood pressure, heart rate, weight, and blood glucose, from the patient’s home, or any location that is remote to a physical clinic.

Remote monitoring services allow patients to automatically report readings and manage their conditions in more consistent, easier ways. Remote monitoring lets patients enter health readings easily from their own homes, and then transmits this data to teams of clinical professionals who assess them on a constant basis. This allows Telehealth programs to act as truly effective extensions of clinics and practices, in ways that keep patients safer, and doctors more in control.

Telehealth increases data collection and automates reports and health alerts, creating added value for both patients and providers. By automating at-home health readings, and providing 24/7 monitoring of recorded levels, Telehealth helps patients actively avoid emergencies by recognizing issues before they occur and builds capacity for more robust preventative medical interventions by physicians.

Overall, Telehealth effectively reduces the need for compulsory in-clinic visits, while also reducing the frequency of trips to the emergency room. Telehealth also extends clinical activities in ways that have been proven to increase daily adherence to physician-created health plans, and that improve risk scoring for patients .

Telehealth & Remote Patient Monitoring Potential

Telehealth holds enormous potential and evidence-based improvements in quality of care. In addition to this, Telehealth holds the largest potential for additional revenue generation than any other telehealth service model. Studies support the measurably positive impacts Telehealth can have on both revenue generating potential for clinics, as well as overall health outcomes.

In regards to revenue, the average clinic employing Telehealth saw a 15% to 25% increase in appointment volume. Most saw 100% more revenue per patient per year when employing remote monitoring, with large increases in profit margins.

The potential for remote monitoring as it relates to patient health is also enormous, with countless conditions both chronic and temporary seeing measurable improvements in patient health outcomes and health manageability through remote monitoring.

The nature of Telehealth means that physicians receive larger volumes of actionable health data. This allows both providers and their patients to make better informed, faster decisions based on a patient’s health state and current readings.

For example, patients in Telehealth programs for conditions such as diabetes saw a 15 point blood sugar reduction at 30 days on average, and a 32 point blood sugar reduction at 12 months.

These and many other studies demonstrate how Telehealth, and specifically, how Accuhealth, increases quality of life for the patient and the provider, in addition to increasing clinic revenue opportunity.

Examples of Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring Application

Diabetes Management Through Telehealth

Telehealth’s potential for impact on chronic conditions is probably most apparent in the management of diabetic patients. Telehealth has transformed the way we treat and manage diabetes.

For a disease where missed readings can mean life-threatening consequences, Telehealth presents new opportunities for easily and successfully managing diabetes.

Diabetic patients can use Telehealth devices to instantly and consistently track their blood glucose levels, and receive health alerts when their readings show irregularities. This allows for a massively improved process of data collection and at-a-distance monitoring, which helps to prevent common complications that occur from irregular glucose levels, and reduces emergencies by identifying problems before they become critical.

Recent studies support the benefits of Telehealth for diabetic patients, with research showing that patients engaging in remote monitoring saw a significant reduction in their blood pressure, and were better able to maintain optimal blood glucose levels.

Diabetes requires constant monitoring and rapid feedback to prevent emergencies. The nature of this illness makes Telehealth the perfect fit for the realities of patients living with diabetes.

Providers like Accuhealth supply products that meet both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes management needs, including a 4G LTE connected glucometer that sends data directly from patients to doctors in real-time. These devices eliminate the need to write down readings and remove the necessity of tracking levels manually.  Telehealth is removing the usual barriers faced by diabetic patients in ways that have real-world benefits for their health and quality of care. This technology is providing these patients the tools that allow them to easily and safely manage their daily health with this disease. What’s more, providers like Accuhealth supply no-cost diabetic consumables to patients using their Telehealth platforms, to reduce the financial and physical burden that comes with diabetes monitoring.

This results in patients taking more readings, and doctors having more awareness and control of their patient’s ongoing medical care. Overall, Telehealth applied to diabetes shows the comprehensive potential for Telehealth to empower both patients and providers in managing and improving health.

Prenatal Care Through Telehealth

Telehealth is also transforming the way many moms-to-be take control of their pregnancy. With gestational diabetes now more and more prevalent amongst pregnant women, Telehealth is providing new ways to keep these patients safe and in control throughout their prenatal journey.

Gestational diabetes mellitus is a carbohydrate intolerance of variable severity. This form of diabetes is typically first diagnosed during pregnancy and stems from insulin resistance that appears after the second and third trimesters.

Growing rates of obesity and diabetes in America have resulted in more cases of gestational diabetes being diagnosed, with an occurrence in 2-9% of pregnancies yearly. What makes gestational diabetes so risky for expectant mothers is that the effects of this disease can have long-term adverse health effects for children born to mothers with GDM.

Due to the dangers that gestational diabetes has on the health of both babies and mothers, these patients need to be constantly aware of their glucose levels and other critical vitals on a daily, around-the-clock basis, in order to assess and prevent issues. These unique monitoring requirements have led to Telehealth becoming the new normal of prenatal care for GDM patients.

Remote monitoring creates new solutions for reducing risk-factors during pregnancy, and is providing mothers much-needed peace of mind throughout those wonderful, but often stressful, 9 months. Telehealth allows expectant mothers with GDM to have a clinical team at their constant disposal, who will assess their glucose and help them maintain healthy levels.

In this capacity, Telehealth effectively reduces the risk of complications and provides a means of immediate intervention to avoid dangerous irregularities, revolutionizing the ways these patients can safely navigate their pre-natal care.

The effectiveness of Telehealth for gestational diabetes patients is measurable, with studies showing the enormous benefits of adopting Telehealth systems in the treatment of GDM patients.

Due to the severity of GDM on mothers and newborns, the success of Telehealth in managing this disease is an incredible example of progress in what has previously been a difficult and risky illness to treat.

While the health outcomes of Telehealth for gestational diabetes are clearly beneficial, the value Telehealth provides to patients themselves also includes having control and confidence of their pregnancy. Telehealth provides a sense of security to these patients, in knowing that their health is being consistently monitored in ways that reduce risk for themselves and their newborns.

Hypertension Care Through Telehealth

Yet another area of medicine that is seeing enormous advancements through the use of Telehealth technology is the treatment of hypertension.

Hypertension is a dangerous condition that affects millions of Americans. An estimated 1 in 3 people throughout the country will experience hypertension at some point in their lives.

The biggest challenge in managing hypertension is that it often has no visible symptoms. This means that most people are not aware when their blood pressure levels reach critical levels, reducing the capacity to effectively and immediately treat hypertension. Left untreated, hypertension can cause serious issues such as heart attacks and strokes, which puts patients suffering from this disease at extremely high risk of fatal complications.

This potential for life-threatening issues makes monitoring blood pressure in routine, disruption-free ways imperative to the safety and quality of life of patients living with hypertension.

This is where Telehealth is making a difference in hypertension management: remote monitoring technologies and devices are specifically tailored for the unique needs of hypertension patients and have created new, effective ways to track and treat the condition.

Traditionally, hypertensive patients have been required to go to clinical settings to get their levels assessed, and are then required to take their pressure at home and manually record their levels.

While this is intended to help doctors keep track of their patient’s health, missed readings and misinterpretation of results taken by patients create frequent emergencies. Manual recordings unintentionally have the effect of taking the power of care out of the hands of providers. This lack of control and oversight leads to frequent health emergencies that both increase patient risk and create unnecessary burdens on urgent care resources.

Many studies have indicated the failings of traditional routine monitoring for hypertension patients. This is because many patients simply do not adhere to routine monitoring, whether from perceived inconvenience, or inconsistency in reporting irregularities to their doctors.

The invisible nature of the symptoms of hypertension, paired with unreported issues in pressure levels, lead to frequent visits to urgent care, and sometimes life-threatening situations.

Telehealth corrects these issues, by providing both convenience and consistency in monitoring processes for patients with high blood pressure. Telehealth devices are more accessible to patients, and allow for easier, and more continuous data collection and alerting.

These devices automatically send alerts to both patients and doctors when blood pressure reaches critical levels, automating the transmission of readings in ways that allow for immediate medical intervention. This leads to increased adherence to home-monitoring and care plans, and reduces risk for patients with hypertension overall.

Telehealth is quickly shifting the way we treat hypertension, in ways that reduce emergencies, and keep both doctor and patient in control of the successful management of their health.

Weight Loss Through Telehealth

Yet another arena of healthcare provision that is seeing transformative benefits through the use of Telehealth technologies is weight loss. Remote weight management solutions are showing enormously promising results for obesity epidemic in the U.S.

With lifestyle modification still being the most effective means of successfully managing obesity and weight loss, remote monitoring technology is leading the way in ensuring compliance to those modifications, and providing personal action plans that are truly effective.

Studies are backing this effectiveness, with research showing that Telehealth results in greater weight loss for obese participants. It also provides safer, more consistent methods of monitoring weight loss and other critical vitals associated with obesity management, which puts patients in better positions to lose weight safely, and in ways that don’t obscure other important health information

Overall, research backs that Telehealth services, like Accuhealth, which are designed to meet the needs of obesity care patients, allow patients to more safely and effectively navigate obesity care.

Asthma Management Through Telehealth

Asthma is yet another chronic condition that naturally lends itself to remote treatment. Remote monitoring provides alternatives to in-person visits, as well as preventative, real-time monitoring capacities.

Telehealth technologies such as e-diaries, wearable devices, and digital inhalers are just some of the many ways remote care is contributing to the easier, at-a-distance management of asthmatic conditions.

These technologies actually bring patients closer to the medical care they need to live productively and safely, in managing what can be a life-threatening condition. This reduces anxiety and inconvenience for these patients, and empowers them to take control of their condition in safer, easier ways.

Many studies support the use of Telehealth technologies in treating asthma, with results including cost reduction and patient empowerment being consistently observed throughout trials.

In addition to asthma, telemedicine has created new capacity for those living in remote areas and urban environments with higher allergenic risks. Telehealth allows them to more readily receive regular, specialized care that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them.

While Telehealth can’t completely replace in-clinic care for these patients, it does offer a safer, more preventive approach to treating asthma that directly improves the health and lives of patients living with the condition.

Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring During a Pandemic

While Telehealth has clear and beneficial applications to common diseases and conditions affecting millions of Americans, its potential exceeds the routine monitoring of patients. Perhaps nowhere was Telehealth’s potential better manifested than during the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic created a rapid acceleration and widespread acceptance of Telehealth technologies in ways that will have an enduring positive impact on the future of medical care, both for patients and physicians.

The pandemic has shown the countless benefits that integrating remote monitoring can have on medical practices and clinical activities. The capacity to treat and monitor patients at a distance has allowed for physicians, clinical staff, and patients themselves to reduce risk of exposure to the COVID-19 virus, and has reduced in-person interactions in ways that have created greater safety and convenience for both patients and providers.

Healthcare providers can continue to provide patient care, even when under quarantine, which can ease the burden of lost professional resources on hospitals, clinics and private practices.

In addition, patients who are high risk can avoid disruptions in their care, and can continue to receive quality healthcare from the comfort of their own homes. With Telehealth, patients can be triaged via video chats, and can avoid overcrowded emergency rooms and urgent care facilities, which further helps relieve healthcare personnel shortages.

Patients who are exhibiting low acuity symptoms can be effectively triaged via a video visit, easing pressure on already overcrowded emergency rooms and urgent care clinics and also helping to relieve healthcare personnel shortages.

Those with chronic conditions can be safely kept under observation through Telehealth devices, and can be monitored for irregularities to avoid unnecessary physical medical interventions.

Telehealth has provided life-saving resources during a global pandemic, and its capacity far outreaches temporary crises. While COVID-19 necessitated a transition to remote care, its benefits and improvements in health outcomes has now become clearly recognized. Now, Telehealth has changed the way patients expect to receive care. More and more, patients are choosing Telehealth for the convenience and consistency it provides in the management of their health.

Technology

A lot of discussion around Telehealth fails to provide a transparent overview of how Telehealth technology works, and which methods and features are really most effective in monitoring patients.

Cellular vs. Bluetooth Devices

One large debate surrounds bluetooth vs cellular devices for Telehealth. While bluetooth is seemingly a more hi-tech, cheaper solution for Telehealth, the truth is that cellular devices are more effective in long-term remote monitoring potential.

While cellular is more costly than bluetooth, cellular devices are simply more effective because cellular devices have fewer troubleshooting issues. Bluetooth devices require other devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to pair with, in order to send their data, and this pairing itself requires frequent troubleshooting and software logins and passwords. All this added complexity creates unnecessary failure points that are completely avoided by using devices with built-in cellular chips that “just work.” Reducing complexity leads to higher and longer patient engagement and compliance rates.

Cellular devices remove obstacles that can disrupt the effectiveness of Telehealth programs, and instead create simpler, more effective methods of monitoring patients.

Live Interaction

Another key tech feature of Telehealth is Live Interaction. This enables access to healthcare professionals from remote locations, such as the patient’s own home. This feature is an effective means of ensuring disruption-free doctor to patient communication outside of traditional appointment settings. This access is proven to improve both quality of care and safety for patients. Live Interaction features allow for ongoing communication between providers and patients. This creates the capacity for patients to receive immediate feedback from their healthcare providers about critical information concerning their health statuses, and better ensures that they are staying on top of their care plans. Live interaction also allows for increased availability in regards to scheduling health appointments, by removing the barriers created by physical consultations.

Storage + Forwarding

Another key feature of Telehealth technology is Storage and Forwarding, which provides increased levels of patient-data gathering and assessment, and gives patients an easier way to send important information related to their health to their providers.

With storage and forwarding features, patients can send pictures, videos and results of diagnostic tests, all directly to their primary care doctors. This helps physicians more accurately guide their patients on steps to take in relation to their health. All of this creates the capacity for personalized consultation, and also creates faster means of confirming non-abnormal results in examinations of healthy patients.

Electronic Medical Record System Integration

While there are many features that are crucial for Telehealth programs to be successful, the most critical feature for any Telehealth program is integration into existing Electronic Medical Record Systems. This feature is the key to Telehealth programs that result in zero interruption, and no increase in administrative labor. Without EMR integration, clinics must work within two separate systems to make their remote monitoring services work efficiently. EMR integration removes this need. With effective EMR integration, clinics are instead left with an easy to use platform designed to automatically work within the system they already know best.

These systems are not only robust in their integration abilities, but are crafted to be simple enough to be used by patients and providers of any age and technical skill level.

EMR integration is the single most crucial success factor in remote monitoring program deployment, as it results in faster implementation of Telehealth programs, reduces training costs for staff, and enhances automation in ways that reduce workload for clinics and providers.

Telehealth leads to higher volumes of patient touch-points, data and reports. In light of this, it is critical that this information is adequately and automatically reflected in existing EMR systems, and is a key success metric in deploying a truly effective remote monitoring solution.

EMR integration also allows for more effective, automated forms of scalability, as it permits clinics to take on more patients in their Telehealth programs, without creating additional labor from clinical staff.

EMR integration also allows for several improved processes for Telehealth implementation and long-term management. This includes digitally signed referrals, which come directly from EMR and automatically flows into Accuhealth’s service provider processes. This referral process creates faster patient onboarding processes, and seamless transition from initiating visits to telemonitoring services.

The most effective Telehealth service providers, such as Accuhealth, ensure complete, automatic integration of biometric data and reports from Telehealth into EMR. Clinics should ensure that this feature is provided when choosing any Telehealth service provider.

Patient Tracking & Telehealth

Patients using Telehealth services are tracked by previously described telemonitoring devices, which allow for the continuous collection of biometric data such as blood pressure, weight, blood glucose, and other common readings.

The type of device used to track a patient varies based on their condition or care plan, but some features remain the same regardless of what is being treated.

As discussed, Telehealth devices use cellular technology to alert both patients and clinics via phone call and/or SMS alerts. This immediate and direct format of communication creates effective interventions that significantly reduce avoidable hospitalizations.

In addition to these alerts going to physicians, clinics using Telehealth providers like Accuhealth also have access to a third-party clinical team who can triage patient data, and who directly transfer this information to a patient’s overseeing healthcare practitioner.

Beyond emergency alerts and biometric monitoring, patients can also be tracked through admission/discharge services, which make providers aware of hospitalizations and discharges experienced by their patients. This further helps reduce readmissions and allows for an increase in transitional care.

In summary, patients engaging with virtual health and remote monitoring are tracked via simple, real-time cellular-enabled devices. These devices transmit data and alerts to doctors and patients, and are additionally monitored 24/7 by third-party clinical teams, keeping patients safer, and closer to medical care than any other form of physical monitoring process.

How to Bill for Telehealth & Remote Patient Monitoring

While the benefits of Telehealth services are clear, billing for remote monitoring care is not always as straightforward. One of the biggest concerns for clinics and practitioners is how to remain in compliance with medical billing codes with remote monitoring of clinical patients.

While many considering a move to virtual care may have anxieties surrounding coding compliance, the truth is that billing for Telehealth is actually quite simple, especially when choosing the right provider. Telehealth providers like Accuhealth have created platforms with automated features that make the billing process easy and remove the risk of coding errors.

These platforms, and their automation features, ensure that clinics and physicians offering Telehealth remain in full compliance with current and proposed changes to physician fee schedules. Telehealth providers, like Accuhealth, who offer turn-key solutions to Telehealth deployment, keep doctors safe from potential coding and billing risks, and reduce the potential for errors through effective program and platform design.

Risk-Free Design

The best Telehealth providers have designed their platforms to allow for auto-timed remote care provision. By doing so, these providers ensure that Telehealth services provided within their platforms meet the time-based billing and coding requirements of Telehealth.

This creates a remote care provision system that makes it nearly impossible to incorrectly bill service provision, as the attestation of time spent on care is completely automatic. As a result, this system design reduces audit risk, and makes implementing and scaling Telehealth programs a simple and secure process.

Anticipating Regulatory Billing Changes

Effective Telehealth program implementation isn’t just about seeing immediate success, it’s also about planning for the future of regulatory processes that will affect your program.

Federal, as well as state laws and regulations, are rapidly evolving to provide increased reimbursement for telemedicine models. Demand for these systems is increasing, and as a result, the need for trusted, full service Telehealth solutions is also rapidly growing amongst clinics and practitioners.

When it comes to future-proofing your Telehealth program, the biggest factor of success is choosing the right telehealth service provider. The best third-party providers ensure compliance with all current coding for Telehealth in addition to designing their platforms to anticipate future changes to billing requirements. This ensures that clinics aren’t left to pick up the pieces when regulatory requirements inevitably change.

Such inevitable changes are already becoming relevant for clinics and practitioners around the country. Shifts such as the current proposed changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule are a great example of how third-party providers like Accuhealth are future-proofing their services.

Proposed Changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule

With Telehealth gaining new wide-scale attention in light of the global pandemic, specific regulations surrounding the billing of Telehealth are being reassessed on federal, regulatory levels. These assessments seek to define which providers can bill for Telehealth services, and what conditions must be met to properly maintain billing compliance.

While many of these changes are creating anxiety throughout the Telehealth industry, services like Accuhealth’s are designed to meet these changes head-on.

Platforms like Accuhealth have been created to specifically harmonize with these potential shifts in how Telehealth can be implemented, in ways that protect and maximize any clinic’s capacity to provide and scale these programs.

These changes include rules about who can charge for Telehealth, and define remote monitoring within specific service categories under evaluation and management, which affects which providers are qualified to provide and bill for Telehealth services.

The Proposed Changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule also redefines the physician-patient relationship, by establishing that practitioners providing Telehealth services must provide Evaluation and Management services to a patient before Telehealth care provision can begin.

Other rules relate to patient consent, and who can receive it for Telehealth service provision. The Proposed MPFS proposes that auxiliary personnel, or non-clinical staff, be allowed to perform these Telehealth services, and that consent may also be obtained by these personnel, as long as there is general supervision by licensed physicians and practitioners. This is great news for clinics hoping to create their own Telehealth programs, as it means they can use contracted providers to implement Telehealth services.

These individuals can furnish and set up devices for Telehealth services under the new proposed MPFS, and can supply devices under the supervision of a qualified physician or practitioner who is billing for these services.

Speaking of devices, the Proposed MPFS also states that devices required under CPT Code 99454 do not need to be FDA approved, but instead must be “reliable and valid, and that the data must be electronically (i.e., automatically) collected and transmitted rather than self-reported.”

In addition to this, devices must be “connected”, meaning that providers requiring patients to self-report readings, or vendors rely only on their own software to collect self-reported data, will no longer be supported.

This is great news for clinics using Accuhealth’s services, as its platform is fully supported under the 2021 MPFS, it exceeds the requirements of quality and effectiveness as they relate to device functionality. In addition to this, Accuhealth’s devices are also highly technologically accessible, making them easy to use for patients of all age groups.

Another key change in the proposed MPFS changes includes requirements for “interactive communication”. In order to bill for CPT Codes 99457 and 99458, Telehealth must include the capacity for live, interactive communication with either the patient themselves or their caregiver, and that at a minimum, it must include “real-time synchronous, two-way audio interaction that is capable of being enhanced with video or other kinds of data transmission”.

It also states that “the interactive communicationmust total at least 20 minutes of interactive time with the patient over the course of a calendar monthfor CPT Code 99457 to be reported.”

With services like Accuhealth, this change is easily manageable, as Accuhealth’s proprietary calling feature directly meets this interactive communication requirement.

This feature allows clinics to have unlimited audio and/or video interaction with their patients, giving clinics the ability to improve patient health while maximizing revenue from CPT codes 99457 and 99458.

In relation to the requirements for data collection as it relates to billing for Telehealth, the proposed MPFS seeks to enforce that 16 days of data within a 30 day period must be collected into order to successfully bill for Telehealth under CPT Codes 99453 and 99454. This is yet another piece of good news for Accuhealth clients, as our platform and tools easily adapt to these minimum adherence requirements for CPT Codes 99453 and 99454.

Accuhealth’s platform also tracks the thirty (30) day billing cadence automatically, eliminating the need for manual tracking. This allows clinics to be confident in knowing they are always in compliance with new and developing coding and billing rules.

Future-Proofing Billing Processes

When it comes to future-proofing your Telehealth program, changes in regulatory billing requirements are one of the biggest considerations that must be taken into account.

The best Telehealth providers, like Accuhealth, address these shifts in billing coding head on, and design their platforms and services to anticipate these eventual standards of remote care provision.

Providers who effectively future-proof their Telehealth solutions provide cost-free devices that are both accessible to patients of all ages, and that allow for the utmost quality of interactivity between patients and providers. They also ensure that their systems not only meet, but exceed minimum requirements of quality and effectiveness in all capacities of program implementation.

Any clinic or practice thinking of starting their own Telehealth program can now more easily do so without worrying about billing compliance or shifts in regulations. Providers like Accuhealth are designed to support the ever-changing landscape of regulatory billing requirements for Telehealth, making this major step in scaling your clinic and improving revenue easy and risk-free.

Coding Changes in Telehealth Billing

In addition to forward-thinking design, Telehealth providers who really ensure the success of their clients also provide transparency around changes in billing regulations, to keep their clients ahead of the curve when it comes to the evolution of Telehealth.

This allows clients implementing Telehealth programs to understand how the CMS will reimburse providers for new CPT codes, and how they can use these changes to open up new streams of potential revenue to help with the transition into value-based care.

Some such changes are already in effect and are making Telehealth implementation an effective reality for providers across the country. New CPT Code 99453 covers the device set-up costs for both episode care and patient education. In addition to this, Code 99454 covers the cost of the device(s) themselves, and even covers the cost of daily recordings and programmed alerts. Another code, Code 99457, covers the first 20-minutes of each calendar month, covering the physiologic monitoring treatment and management services by clinical staff, physicians, or other qualified professionals in healthcare.

As time goes on, more and more codes are being added into the mix to better allow for comprehensive remote care. These regulatory changes will further improve the capacity for clinics and providers to not only collect revenue but also widen services for patients, especially those living in remote areas.

Scalability

While the benefits of Telehealth as it relates to quality of care are clear, scalability is a critical concern that must be accounted for in any telemonitoring solution. Without the ability to scale an Telehealth program, the return on investment for implementation is simply not worth the effort, and leads to wasted time and resources.

The bottom line is that the value Telehealth has for patients and care provision must also translate into financial stability and revenue growth for clinics, in order to become a sustainable form of care provision.

True scalability provides the long-term viability necessary for clinics to sustain remote care in permanent ways. With effective Telehealth deployment, clinics can see real, measurable returns on investment that provide value for both practitioners and patients.

The biggest factor in creating Telehealth programs that scale is choosing the right telehealth provider. For example, clinic’s using Accuhealth’s Telehealth services saw an average of 15% to 25% increase in appointment volume. These same clients also saw enormously increased profit margins, receiving on average 100% more revenue per patient per year.

How do these providers create this success for clinics? Their platforms allow for higher levels of engagement, which is the key to Telehealth scalability. This is because the more patients engaging with a clinic’s remote monitoring program, the easier it is to expand the program to more clients.

The most successful Telehealth services create immediate, automated ways to scale clinical activities and revenue. This allows clinics to easily and quickly expand their programs to enrol significantly higher quantities of existing patients into their telehealth services.

This is important, especially when considering that the top-performing clinics using remote monitoring programs typically have 80% or more of their eligible patients engaging in their telemonitoring services.

Clinics hoping to scale their programs in effective ways must choose a telehealth provider whose features provide instantaneous, automatic ways for applying remote monitoring programs to include ten, to ten hundred patients.

Providers like Accuhealth have designed their services and platform to directly encourage this form of scalability and growth. From effective EMR integration, to the simplicity in the navigability of their platform, Accuhealth’s platform actively promotes engagement. This allows Accuhealth to create easy Telehealth program implementation that is seamlessly expandable to hundreds, or even thousands of patients.

No matter what provider a clinic chooses, partnering with a company who supports growth and minimizes upfront implementation costs is necessary to create Telehealth programs that provide increased ROI and long term financial growth for clinics.

Bringing it All Together

There are many factors to consider when planning a move to virtual care. From the application of Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring to existing patients, to the unique features required to meet your clinical needs, many elements come into play in deploying Telehealth that really works for you.

Accuhealth takes the complexity out of Remote Patient Monitoring implementation, and creates turn-key service solutions that instantly fit into the format needed by a given clinic, practice, or practitioner. Accuhealth has designed its services from both medical expertise and an extensive cybersecurity background, providing unique, simple, and secure solutions that stand out from other providers.

Accuhealth’s platform also makes Telehealth implementation easier on physicians, by visualizing data for doctors in ways that are simple to consume and understand. This eliminates cognitive noise, further allowing physicians to onboard more patients with less effort.

Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does need to be comprehensive. Choosing a provider who will provide you everything you need in one, full-service program is the best, easiest way to implement a solution that creates immediate results for both patients and providers. Find out more about how you can start your own Remote Patient Monitoring program today, with zero risk, and zero upfront costs. Visit accuhealth.tech.








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Meet the Author

Accuhealth is proud to feature content from industry-leading experts that contribute in-depth knowledge of Remote Patient Monitoring and Telehealth subject matter to our blog.

David Medeiros

David Medeiros

David Medeiros is a Remote Patient Monitoring expert with 10 years of clinical, telehealth and home care experience, specifically in Remote Patient Monitoring. With his team, David has been able to develop RPM/Telehealth from the early pilot years, to the industry leading juggernaut that Accuhealth is today.

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