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The COVID-19 pandemic has blown the doors wide open on telehealth, especially with new reimbursement parity policies. But value-based contracts can support the growing interest in remote patient monitoring and other virtual care services beyond the pandemic, according to telehealth experts at the Revenue Cycle Management Summit.
“Remote patient monitoring programs are growing,” Andrew Solomon, MPH, senior program manager at Northeast Telehealth Resource Center (NETRC) and Medical Care Development, Inc., told attendees last week. “These are the cellular- or internet-connected kits that we send to the patient’s home and collect vitals on a regular basis. I think organizations may be more likely to implement this kind of program in response to value-based care contracts and how we keep patients out of higher cost care and keep them in primary care and engaged.”
Remote patient monitoring programs can remind patients to collect their vitals, provide educational content, and even enable a video or in-person visit if needed to address vitals outside of a predetermined range, Solomon continued. The latter being especially helpful for providers responsible for quality and cost of care under value-based contracts.
These programs are being leveraged by some hospitals to help reduce expensive hospital readmissions that also carry steep financial penalties under value-based contracts, Solomon explained.