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Remote patient monitoring coding reforms tabled again
Earlier this month, an American Medical Association-anointed panel was set to consider proposed changes that would have simplified and broadened applicability of billing codes governing wearables and other devices doctors can use to monitor patients outside the clinic. But it didn’t happen because the revisions were pulled from the agenda of CPT Editorial Panel‘s periodic meeting about a week before the meeting. This happened once before in September 2022.
The codes in question here surround the use of devices for remote physiologic monitoring (RPM) of measures like weight and blood pressure, and remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM), for example of medication adherence or response. CPT codes are used by doctors to bill and by Medicare and private insurers to reimburse for medical services. These codes are significant because they dictate the business models of a huge swath of companies that have cropped up to help practices and health systems provide such services — and influence whether clinicians bother to offer services to patients at all.
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