Vivify Health Releases ‘Moving Closer to Embracing Remote Care’ White Paper
PLANO, Texas, April 27, 2021—Vivify Health, the developer of the nation’s leading connected care platform for remote patient care, today announced the release of a new white paper, “Moving Closer to Embracing Remote Care: Remote Care Enters the Mainstream in 2021.” The paper examines the changing landscape for telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) reimbursement, as the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) increasingly recognizes the benefits of these services and is changing its regulations to support them accordingly.
To download the white paper, click here.
The white paper provides an overview of the requirements for physicians and other qualified health professionals to submit claims to CMS, and also stresses the importance of providers taking advantage of new reimbursement opportunities for telehealth and RPM to guard against CMS removing them in the future due to a lack of utilization and interest.
In the past, reimbursement for telehealth was often limited by originating site and geography, and since RPM is not considered a telehealth service, it did not have those same restrictions. However, during the COVID Public Health Emergency, CMS made substantive changes related to its telehealth and RPM billing and reimbursement policies, which may seem complex, difficult-to-understand and challenging for some providers. For example, this year providers can bill for both data accession, review and interpretation by the Provider (CPT 99091) and interactive communications and remote care services rendered by clinical staff under CPT 99457 or 99458 in the same month.
Vivify’s white paper explains the new changes that took effect Jan. 1, 2021, in addition to how providers can take advantage of them. The report discusses updates to groups of telehealth and RPM Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes, including:
- Remote Physiologic Monitoring codes
- Virtual check-ins by healthcare professionals
- Chronic Care Management codes for two or more conditions
- Transitional Care Management and behavioral health codes
- Consolidations of consent for all services
- Monthly telehealth ESRD-related dialysis clinical assessments
- Opioid and substance use disorders
While the white paper covers key adjustments and updates that took effect this year, providers should expect more changes in the future as RPM and telehealth continue to prove their effectiveness in improving health outcomes, reducing costs, increasing patient engagement and enhancing provider satisfaction. Nonetheless, if telehealth and RPM continue to enjoy strong bilateral support in Congress, many of the changes enacted for the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency may become permanent.
“While providers have embraced the opportunity, they still face challenges in understanding recent changes at the federal level related to telehealth and RPM billing and reimbursement requirements,” said Bill Paschall, Vice President of business development, Vivify Health. “Our white paper, which we update yearly, explains how providers can keep pace with the rapid rate of change by utilizing the appropriate codes to obtain fair and proper reimbursement for delivering RPM and telehealth services.”
To learn more about Vivify solutions for RPM visit: https://www.vivifyhealth.com/solutions/
About Vivify Health
Vivify Health is the innovative leader in connected healthcare delivery solutions. The company’s mobile, cloud-based platform powers holistic remote care management through personalized care plans, biometric data monitoring, multi-channel patient education and functionality configured to each patient’s unique needs. Vivify Health serves the nation’s largest and most progressive health systems, healthcare organizations and employers—empowering clinicians to proactively manage the complexities of remote care and catalyzing employee health and productivity with a single-platform solution for all device and digital health data. The comprehensive, content-rich platform and turnkey workflow services enable providers to intuitively scale and maximize value across populations.
