The How And What Of Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) With Matt Jurek Of Osprey RTM Solutions

Implementing Remote Therapeutic Monitoring in a clinic can feel a little overwhelming for some PT owners. In this episode, we talk to Osprey RTM Solutions and Consulting PT  Matt Jurek , a self-made relative expert in RTM coding and billing. He joins Nathan Shields to give a comprehensive guide on integrating RTM programs in PT treatment protocols and how they can benefit PTs and their patients! If you’re looking for fundamental RTM consulting, this is the episode for you!

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I’ve got a new acquaintance, Matthew Jurek. D o you go by Matt or Matthew ?

When I’m in trouble, it’s Matthew. We’ll keep it, Matt.

Matt Jurek is a PT and is the business owner of Osprey RTM Solutions and Consulting . H e’s joining me because there has been some information going around about RTMs . I did an episode with wearable technology regarding RTMs because this is all relatively new . I was excited to bring you on because you’ve been focused on helping and consulting both on the software side and the implementation side of helping owners implement these RTM codes into their practice to their benefit and the benefit of patients as well . I ‘m excited to bring you on . T hanks for coming on, Matt . I appreciate it.

This is fun for me. Thanks a lot, Nathan.

T ell everybody a little bit about yourself . W hat got you into this space , to begin with ? Y ou are a physical therapist but you had a winding journey to get to this point.

It has been fun. It has been an interesting road. I graduated from PT school in ’08. I began right away in the outpatient clinic. I got married to a way better PT than me. She’s also way better looking too but she’s mine. We started our journey together in Indiana in the Midwest. I love our people there but we needed adventure. We needed to get out and see what was out there. We thought Oregon sounded cool. Our honeymoon was a trip out there.

We began our careers out there and had two lovely kids. At one point, we came to the recognition that we were working too hard. We’re running to feed the kids in the morning and drop them off at daycare, coming back, doing a little bit with them, eating dinner, putting them asleep, and doing it again the next day. We wanted to do life differently. We sold everything including our beautiful home. I’ll never forget that home but we sold it. We got a huge fifth wheel and started traveling the country as travel PTs.

We found it workable where one of us could work a three-month contract. The other one was homeschooling our kids and loving on them. We traveled for about six weeks, seeing some cool stuff. We would flip-flop. Neither one of us got burnt out with the hectic kid life and keeping up with that, which is its own burden at times. Nobody is getting burnt out there. We were flipping back and forth. We made it through the pandemic, which was an interesting thing, but life seemed to be keeping us on the road. We have been doing it now for three years.

We wanted to see some friends that we made out in Southern Oregon. While we were there, I ended up asking and approaching the owner of the clinic that I worked with at that time if he would have me. Before I could get the words out, he said yes. I settled down for a nice three-month contract with him. While there, I said, “How can I help you when I’m on the road? I’m looking for more freedom. I know it sounds selfish to say with the lifestyle we’re living but where can I help you like a telehealth program?” He goes, “Stop right there. I’ve got three letters for you, RTM. Do you know anything about it?” “No, I don’t.”

He said, “Find out about it. Figure it out. If you can establish a program, we’re going to work something out together because it’s not anything that I have the bandwidth for. It’s something that’s out there. I don’t know what it is. Figure it out for me. We will split some differences here.” That gave me the motivation to dig in and find out what are these three letters. What do they mean? What are the codes that are associated with them? How the heck do I get it done? I up and ran it and started running a program for him after finding some ways through some stumbling blocks.

Y ou’ve been working on this independently and developing a program for him , but you’re also consulting with other owners .

In the midst of that, I talked to anybody that was in the game and the owners themselves. We had a couple of different platforms that we already had subscriptions to that were saying we could do RTM through their platform. We can take this route. I was talking to the leaders of both those groups and saying, “What makes sense for our culture at the company that I was working with? How can I get there?”

What I kept on finding was that the software companies had a big gap. They had this nice tidy package to sell owners but they had no way of providing a solution for those owners to implement it. They weren’t able to speak that PT language or that on-the-ground frontline language of doing it in your clinic. I found that was a gap. The PT owners are running ragged. Time is a four-letter word to them. They don’t have it. It’s not showing up.

T hey have no clue where to start .

I was like, “I can take what I’ve done and develop it into some package that allows folks whatever size of an easy button they want to press. Let’s try to develop these different packages and levels to start with and gain some traction.” It has been a fun venture so far.

W e have to back up because we have already used the three – letter acronym and haven’t even explained what it is . Y ou may have listened to the previous episode but if you’re new to RTMs, we have to back way up . I magine I’m an owner . I ‘m calling you . I say , “I ‘ve heard about these RTMs .” What are they? What do I need to know about them ? A m I an appropriate candidate for implementing them ? H ow do you get them fundamentally up to speed?

It’s fun to see who knows, who thinks they know, and who doesn’t have a clue and admits to it, but RTM is Remote Therapeutic Monitoring. Here we are at the end of ’22. It has been a whole year since they wrote these rules with 2 or 3 sentences and said, “Clinic owners, go ahead and figure this out.” There you go. All the consulting or legal businesses want to jump on it. It sounds awesome because there’s this new source of revenue for owners and stuff. There’s still this gap. It’s not a good explanation or implementation of it.

RTM is Remote Therapeutic Monitoring. CMS released those in an effort to mirror what was already in existence with RPM or Remote Physiological Monitoring. You’ve got your cardiac specialist who has an expensive device that he’s able to supply his cardiac patient with. He spends time training that patient on it, the cost of the device itself, and then interpreting the data afterward. RPM codes were in existence to allow that clinician to capture some of that cost back.

What occurred was coinciding with the pandemic. A split or fewer in-person clinic visits had to happen for PTs for some while. In so doing, I believe that data was tracked. CMS found that patients were reporting better functional outcomes when they had that trackable and accountable component to their care. They had contact in between clinic visits. CMS said, “We can take this and make it happen in the therapy world.”

They wrote four codes that mirrored what was in there. It boiled down to CMS wanting the codes to track accountability of a patient and musculoskeletal data to monitor progressions, interject in a timely fashion if something was going wrong with their care between clinic visits, and then improve that out-of-clinic communication and quick modification of the behavior. Out came these four codes. You’ve got 98975. That is one code that can be billed one time per patient care per episode of care. It signifies the training of the patient on this device that you’re supplying them.

It’s almost like a one – time initial eval code per episode.

It’s being used in such. There’s some gray area in terms of when to bill it because you will see the further ruling with the 77 code. I took my time and trained this person on this device. Mind you, I should back up. Within the device description, CMS included software that is capable of tracking musculoskeletal data. That’s where you see these apps being released that are able to track some form of musculoskeletal data.

I t doesn’t have to be wearable as we had last time . I t can be someone going onto an app that you’ve instructed them on and saying, “I did X , Y and Z exercises . I did my home exercise program for so many minutes today.” I t can be something as simple as that.

There is a certification that Medicare is encouraging they will provide the software company to apply for and be certified underneath. The rules and how that is occurring have a cluster. It’s a light word on that a little bit. It hasn’t gone very well. What I was able to do is play with a couple of these different platforms and see what Medicare was reimbursing. All I can do is say from my end that I’ve used an app that is tracking login times, active participation, perceived exertion, pain and those quantitative data. Medicare at this juncture is reimbursing for that usage.

That code is which one again?

98975 is I train them on that software that was provided, then comes 98977. That’s reimbursement for the actual device that you provided. This code is interesting because it’s on a daily clock. Once the person is engaged with that app or that software, the clock begins. A 30-day time limit has been set by CMS in which the patient needs to have sixteen interactions with this software. It’s some kind of data point, sixteen times. PT owners will read that number and stop. They just put it away, “I don’t have time to figure out how am I going to engage a patient that many times online. What do I do with that sixteen?”

Honestly, it was a big pill for me to swallow too because I was like, “Is this the end of me working this deal out with this company?” In the end, what’s a patient coming to PT for? They want to get better and improve their function. The PT’s main weapon to combat that main medicine is exercise. We have been doing this all along. We said, “Here’s your homework, your piece of paper, or your bible for the next couple of weeks while you’re working with me. I want you to stay active with it.” However, as PTs, we’re not very proactive in saying, “This is the prescription. If your doctor told you to take your pill twice a day for the next 30 days, you’re going to do that.”

The PTs' main weapon to combat main medicine is exercise.
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“I ‘m the d octor . L isten to me .”

“Did you do your exercise?” They say, “I didn’t. I lost my papers. I’ve got too many papers. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” This is a great excuse if I needed an excuse to say, “You have to sign in. You have to do your homework. It’s all in one place. It’s not losable. It’s all there.” I agree with CMS’s decisions to make this a reality for PTs. It’s something that’s going to be reimbursed now because I don’t know how much time is spent running to the printer, reprinting this, and reformulating that. In the clinic, it’s like, “Mrs. Jones, you’re supposed to do this. I’m sorry.” That 77 code is recapturing that cost and tracking that patient proving that 16 out of those 30 days have been met.

I f that’s the qualifier, you would bill this code at the end of those 30 days if the 16 interactions had been met .

Many of the apps are very clever. They have done it in different ways but they will flag or signify when that person has reached that threshold so that you know it’s appropriate to bill them.

Y ou don’t have to go back and manually count each visit sixteen times . T hey will tell you they have met it or they haven’t.

I tried that about three times, and then I was like, “Where’s the solution here? Go ahead and flag me.” The other cool thing about that code is every 30 days, you can hit those 16 points. That’s that code. Those two are untimed codes as well. In my model where I’m working for a clinic remotely and tracking these things, I do it differently than in a clinic where each PT is taking the responsibility and has been trained to take this responsibility, but those two codes can be tagged on the end of a daily note as untimed codes. That’s how those are going through. It gets tricky. Are you ready?

I thought we were already through the tricky part . It’s 16 in 30 days . I thought that was the tricky part but there’s more.

We’ve got 98980. This one is more of in the timed code category. What it’s capturing is the PT’s time spent tracking and monitoring the data that’s brought in. It is email messaging, text messaging, whatever platform you’re using, a chat through the software of your choice, and then at least one phone call or video call, all of which has up to twenty minutes.

That full twenty-minute time is now billable under 98980. That gets daunting as well but then I like to remind owners, “How frequently are you getting a call from Mrs. Jones outside of her clinic visits to say, ‘What was that exercise? My knee is swollen.'” You’re stepping away and answering those calls anyhow. If you did it right, this is something that you’re already doing. There’s a way to get reimbursed for it.

C an that be billed in between visits when she makes that call ? D o you have to wait until the time of service to bill that code?

The answer to that is yes. What I’ve done is, having made those contact points, talk to those patients and then fully track those twenty minutes I feel comfortable billing. I don’t always bill it on the day that I’ve talked to Mrs. Jones. If it makes sense to wrap the codes together, I’ve done that before. That has not been argued against.

You have to document it appropriately , “I spent five minutes here on this day . I spent ten minutes on a call .” I f it was the first five minutes of your conversation at the time of service, maybe it goes under that code i f it pays well enough .

It can be anywhere in there that time outside of the clinic that has been spent regarding the case if it was five minutes.

If that d oesn’t make the eight – minute rule , does i t still has to meet eight minutes ?

It has to meet the twenty minutes combined time.

Y ou can only do it every twenty minutes . E ven if it hits eight minutes, you still can’t bill that code . I t’s a twenty- minute must . I understand .

For example, in some of my documentation, I’ll write, “Mrs. Jones has been active since X date and has had six email messages.” I have automated messages that go out. I’ll get responses to those. There are 6 messages totaling 8 minutes of time plus 5 minutes of time tracking her data and modifying her home exercise, “On this date, I spent another ten minutes helping Mrs. Jones navigate her home environment and dealing with swelling after her new knee.”

A t this point, if she’s having a hard time still logging in and finding things in that stuff on the app, does that count?

I feel comfortable doing that because it’s my time as a professional. If Medicare is asking me to spend my time, I’ll always interject something in there like, “How are you doing with this stretch? Are you making it around the house okay?” There’s that level of care advice given within the call.

I t’s a good point to remind everybody . T his is Matt Jurek ‘s consultation with the group here as it pertains to December 2022 . T hings could significantly change if you’re tuning into this in 2026 . D on’t rely on this information ev en if this is 2022 or early 2023 . T hings could change . Y ou have to be on top of the RTM codes . W hat I love is that you’re sharing the specific codes that we’re talking about . I t should be easier to come up to speed on what they are . I t’s also easier to find these codes on what CMS and APTA have put out . T alk to Rick Gawenda , BCMS , and that kind of stuff regarding the codes . L et’s be clear that you don’t take any responsibility for the advice that you’re sharing .

That’s a well-said disclaimer there. I appreciate that. My job as I see it is to interpret things as my interpretation and then share what worked for me. We will modify what’s going to work in your space. I appreciate that. This isn’t the final say. I’m not that guy.

Is it 97980? Are there a ny more nuances to that one?

There’s one additional code. They said, “We’re going to put in another code 98981.” That is if you’ve repeated in the same calendar month the 98980 requirements of the twenty minutes of time spent, you can bill another code. The 80 and the 81 are on calendar month clocks. That is a nuance I should have shared. They are on a calendar month. The 77 is on a 30-day timer that begins at eval pretty much.

T here’s a distinction there . I f you had twenty minutes on the 29th of the month, it resets as of the first of the next month.

That’s as far as we can tell. It’s odd.

T hat’s one that people might need to get clear on because that could change over time . W hat are you seeing in total ? H ow has it benefited the patients from what you’ve seen ? H ow has it benefited owners from your perspective that have implemented ?

The benefits to patients that we’re seeing ducktails what a PT’s interpretation of a benefit is for them. The first one is it’s improving compliance with home exercise. The other cool thing to ducktail into the PT benefit realm is to follow through with a plan of care. We’re seeing a lot less of the “I’ve got the 6 to 7 visits I had to cancel. I’m a ghost under the radar in your system” patients. We have all seen those happen too frequently. A benefit to both worlds is that accountability. They know I’m going to call them at some point. They know that they’re being followed up on. If there have been a couple of missed visits, I can easily interject and say, “Are you coming into your next visit? Here’s a reminder of the next visit,” or how you want to say it.

Remote Therapeutic Monitoring helps improve compliance with home exercise and decrease canceled clinic visits.
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It’s t hrough the platforms that people are using.

The plan of care is being followed through on. I have to admit some guilt. I was judging a book by its cover. I tracked the age of folks that were following through with at least two months of engagement. The average age that I found was 73.3. That’s the average age that I came up with. We’ve got our mid-80 folks and our 65-year-old folks both participating, playing the game, and being able to handle the technology saying, “I got over the fact that this was one more thing to do.” They will always say first, “I’ve done PT before where I do my exercises twice a week and tell my PT I did them. This is helping me stay engaged more.” I’ve gotten that numerous times. It’s fun to hear that it’s paying off in that way.

T he stuff that’s good for the patient in that regard ends up being better for the PTs and the business owners . S upposedly , their metrics are going to improve .

The plan of care is being followed through on. We haven’t quite been able to capture the, “Are there fewer no-shows and cancellations because of this?” You’ve got such a variety of insured payers coming through the door, but the patients are enjoying it. They like the fact that they can ask these questions. Seeing the parallel between the patient benefit and the PT benefit, the patients can get those questions out of the way.

When the patient walks into their clinic space, the PT doesn’t have to spend the first twenty minutes teaching Suzy Q how to stretch her calf again. It’s happening. She’s got this app that’s showing her how to do it. She can ask questions. The PT is finding it easier to hop on the progression, “Here’s the next step. This is great. Keep doing this but here’s our next step.” Rather than so much handholding happening in the clinic, it’s happening outside of the clinic space. PTs are enjoying that.

One more PT benefit from a metric standpoint is we’ve got four clinic locations. It’s cool because although it’s clumped in Southern Oregon, there are different demographic types of people that are coming in and the busyness that’s involved in each clinic varies. In our busy clinic, this has allowed less waitlist time too if there’s a patient like, “You’ve been in 3 times a week and then 2 times a week. Let’s go to one time a week because I know you’re going to have this follow-up with Matt.”

“Meet me one time a week for the next three weeks. You’re doing great with your exercises. Your progression is going to continue to incline.” With those couple of cancellations, it’s not our loss. You get somebody from the waitlist and engage them on the patient too. We have been able to shorten our waitlist time without interrupting someone’s full plan of care or decreasing their progression as they go along.

W e talked about CMS implementing these codes . H ave commercial payers taken these codes on as well , i ncluding workers’ comp?

That’s interesting. Let’s say the RTM is a vehicle. It’s an alliteration that I like to give. I’m going to give you the keys to the car and teach you how to drive this car. The car can go 120 miles an hour. You might get caught. I’m going to give you the preference where I like to drive somewhere right in that speed limit or maybe going a little bit if I’m in a rush and I need to find a restroom, but we’re going to be driving at this speed limit that’s a safe zone thing.

I have talked to clinic owners that are driving at 120 miles an hour. They have tagged to find out what insurances are reimbursing. Some private insurances are joining the boat. I’ve engaged in that part with the clinics I’m working in. We’re still in the test phase to see where they’re at and where they’re coming back when we send these codes out.

It’s going to vary from state to state. I t’s going to be hard until everyone starts doing it , and then finds out who the payers are and who are not . I f someone in Florida wanted to call all the commercial payers that they’re contracted with and ask them if they’re accepting RTM codes, w ho knows if they get the right answers ? T hey might as well start billing them .

Test it. That’s where we still are a year after the release of these codes. I’ve had that conversation with owners and said, “We can test the waters but we have to try at some point.” There are a lot of gray areas but there are things that we can work through and we can work around and figure out what’s going to happen best.

W hat are you seeing then in terms of training the physical therapy teams on this technology and implementing it into their program ? Y ou mentioned physical therapists don’t like to have their days messed with and their flow changed at all . I mplementing new programs can be difficult . W hat has been the experience implementing this application and the expectation that they’re going to use it with their patients on a regular basis from the physical therapists themselves?

First and foremost, to make this work, you’ve got to find software that’s seamless without as much interruption. Hopefully, you have some form of program that you’re generating exercises on that you can share.

They need to have a patient engagement app of some kind . I’m assuming m ost of the EMRs aren’t going to come with this . T hey’re not going to come with these . T hey need to have some patient engagement app that is separate from their EMR and email contact list because the newer apps that maintain engagement like this are going to start tracking the patient’s engagement and all this stuff . T hey need to be considerate of what those apps look like.

They do. I lucked out in that realm. We had been using Physiotec for eight years as our software generator. That was integrated seamlessly through our EMR system. When I click the home exercise program, Physiotec has it set up where the patient’s profile is generated. There are no other clicks. I’ve told my PTs, “Make sure that you send this to Mrs. Jones. That’s all you have to do. I’ve got the rest.”

It has always been this way. They send them the profile link. The patient logs on. They’re good to go. If you’ve engaged in their RTM platform, those patients are easily filtered out with a dashboard that tracks days engaged, how many logins they have had, and where their musculoskeletal data is. An exportable report is copy-pasted into your EMR.

Away we go, “Here are those sixteen visits. Here’s why I’m billing this code stuff.” Physiotec has been great to work with in that sense. Our relationship has blossomed. I’m helping them figure out how to provide a solution to clinic owners so that they can get on board and have this startup program. They’re not over their head with a million other tech tasks trying to do this stuff.

W hat should PT owners be aware of ? T hey should give P hysi otec a try, especially if it seamlessly integrates into the EMR like yours . Which EMR are you using?

We use Clinicient.

I f they’re using Clinicient , Physiotec easily integrates . Let’s say they’re using other engagement apps or looking into them . W hat do they need to consider to make the RTM codes and that technology work in their best interest to make it as seamless as possible?

There are top three things. I’ve pinned on home exercises because that’s what the patient is coming to you for. They don’t want to be spammed out by emails, surveys, and stuff to get that engagement. One is a software that you’re using for your exercise that they can log into, tracks their engagement and login times, and has some form of musculoskeletal RPE pain level. Those things can be clicked on and reported by the patient.

As a PT, you want to make sure that data is gathered easily and exportable. I can copy, paste, and move it over to my documentation when it’s time. Those would be the biggies of what to look for in that software. You have to draw the patient in somehow. They don’t want to be spammed. If they’re going there to complete their exercises, if I put myself in the patient role, that in my mind is less obtrusive to my life than having to answer surveys, pinpoint this, and do that stuff.

There are two questions related to the documentation that you were talking about . Y ou talked about RPE or the R elative P hysical E xertion scale and pain levels . I s it necessary to utilize the RTM codes to have those two metrics ?

Where we have ended up after a year of debating and where it’s at, in the end, my answer would be yes. You want that musculoskeletal data so that you have some data points driven. You don’t want zeros lined up. I had sixteen logins but in the end, my patient logged in sixteen times. What did they do in those sixteen times? Back it up with what they did.

Also, how it affected them. I can understand that . I ‘m assuming that you’re not only documenting that you had the engagement , but this engagement and the utilization of these codes , this program , or this app has generated this improvement in those same metrics that you measured .

You nailed it. That’s almost what I write in my documentation.

It’s just a few sentences . W here have you seen pushback from providers ? I’ m sure there have been some but what are some of the “c omplaints “? W ere they hesitant ? W hat have you had to deal with to get this fully implemented?

As far as the owners themselves, the first part is buying in, “Is this worth my time? I want to see some numbers.” There are state-to-state differences in what is being reimbursed. How big is your population? If you’re a 75% cash pay with a couple of insurers, it’s not for you to invest your time in this. If you’re in that 20% to 50% Medicare Advantage population, this should be for you because you should be sick and tired of getting cut 1,000 times a year. It’s a death-by-1,000-cuts scenario. This would be for you. The pushback is, “Is it worth it?” That’s my first answer. What’s your patient population? Are you going to garnish what you’re looking for out of this? If the answer is yes, that’s great.

The next hurdle is, “Where does the time come from to capture all four codes?” I answer that with, “Let’s delve into your clinic space and environment. What’s going to work best? Do you have 2 or 3 PTs that you don’t mind blocking off two 45-minute segments in your day and then scheduling a couple of 15-minute calls to try to get those eight zeros? Go for it because you’re at least going to be contacting some folks and going through that realm. Do you want to allocate one PT and some of their time and figure out how to make that work financially for you and them?” The number one difficulty is the individual PTs and that stinking piece of paper, “Here are the exercises that I’m giving to you, patient.”

T hey need the paper . T hey have to print it out .

They have to print it out and give it to them. That becomes an automatic excuse for the patient, “I’ve got my exercises right here. I don’t need to mess around and clumsily try to log in.” That change in behavior has been one of the biggest difficulties for the success of these programs. Otherwise, once you get them rolling, the patients know how to log in and find their exercises. They like the extra help that comes with it. It’s an interesting thing. It might have needed talking to myself when I proposed those scenarios but that’s what I portray in my mind.

Change in behavior has been one of the biggest difficulties for the success of RTM programs.
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It reminds me of when I started physical therapy in 1999 . I forget what the home exercise program cards were. Y ou have to pull out the cards , arrange them on the printer copier, and then make a print off of your specialized home exercise program . E ventually , we’re smart enough to do the same 5 or 6 exercises on a sheet and copy off 20 of them , but we always had that box of cards for home exercise programs . A lot of therapists are still stuck from a couple of decades ago.

It has evolved and that printer becomes a friend somehow. I don’t know if it’s a mental rest break to run down the hall and grab that piece of paper or whatnot. That’s open honesty with you there to say, “What are some big hurdles that I found?” Otherwise, there are workable solutions around how to implement them in your clinic space.

I know t his can change significantly between jurisdictions . I t could change over the course of time . I t could change between payers . What d o you see are some of the reimbursement rates for these codes ?

That’s 98975. I trained the patient. This is purely Medicare. The low end is $14.5. The high end is $19.5. It’s right around that $14 and $19 range. The 98977, which can be billed every 30 days with those 16 logins is ranging from a low end of $42 and a high end of $51. It’s a nice spectrum there. The 98980 is right around that $33 to $35 for the low range up towards $40. I wish that one was higher because that’s the one that takes time. I’m coding for it. Following suit, 98981 has a low end of $20 and a high end of $27. That’s that second chunk of $20.

Y ou have to have the 75 code before you can build the other ones . Y ou can’t just jump in on the 77 code.

In my model, that magic number sixteen threshold has been reached. What I’ll do is bundle those two codes together and go to other clinics. Upon eval, other clinics feel comfortable throwing that code in with their eval code and their Therex and then throwing that I-trained-them code in there. I’ve not seen a problem in terms of disagreement with that code coming back either way.

Y ou’ve seen Medicaid be on board with these as well and maybe not state – dependent . H ave you seen Medicaid payers paying that as well?

It’s interesting because a long time ago, the clinic that I’ve been working with decided not to honor Medicaid in Oregon for years. There’s a client that I’m working with on the other blue ocean in Delaware. His practice is a fair amount of Medicaid. They’re reimbursing. They’re on the high end for that 75 code. He’s like, “I’ve tested the waters. It’s right around that $19 range.” They’re honoring it.

Y ou’ve shared a bunch of stuff about what the codes are, how you meet them, and some of the intricacies in terms of implementing them. W hat I like is you laid it out . T he owners that should be using it are the ones that have higher percentages of these populations in their clinic and that are coming through . T he people that tend to use it the most are about 73 years of age . D oes that mean those that are teenager s through 40 to 50 years old aren’t as interested in compliance with it ? Do the people that use it m ost the older group ?

I started with the clinic saying, “Can we keep our doors open to the Medicare population?” Where I’ve laid most of my time is that 65 and up category. Now that we’re starting to see what the interest is with clients in the private sector, I’ll be able to answer that probably in a couple of months because we will have some time. It’s an interesting thing. It’s going to have to be a pretty sexy thing for folks that have to pay a little bit more out of pocket to meet their deductible to buy into. The presentation is going to have to change.

It has to be a different selling point . Is there anything that we didn’t cover in this discussion that you find yourself talking about when you’re introducing this to owners and practitioners?

We covered a lot. You have that PT background. You went through the list of what I usually get from PT owners, “How is this doable? What does this look like?” I love your question where you asked, “What should I look for when I’m approaching a doable software thing and hitting those ideas?” I would put one more caveat in there. Are they offering some help or training for your staff and taking some of that stuff off our plate?

D on’t leave it to the owner to train the team on how to use this app . P lease don’t make us do that.

Train the app. They’re like, “Physiotec is taking advantage of our relationship and saying, ‘Matt, would you train these PTs on how to track their patients, navigate, and accurately bill?'” We’re providing that as a mended relationship at this point. That’s where I started the business to say, “If you’re a software company, I’m game to try to learn your scenario and what you’re using and talk to your clients too.” It’s a cool niche that has developed that people are interested in on both ends in the tech world and then the on-the-ground PT world. If I had to sum one thing up, it’s doable.

I love the relationship that you have with Physiotec because you’re able to say, “T his is what I’m needing .” T hey’re saying , “W e didn’t know that .” Y ou’re the boots – on – the – ground guy , “G o and fix this , Physiotec. Y ou do that . T his can make it more seamless .” I t’s cool that you have that relationship with engagement software already

T hose who have engagement software already are going to want to talk to their vendors and make sure that they’re laying out some of these things , “D on’t make me count the number of interactions every 30 days . F lag me . I f it’s getting close five days beforehand , and they have only gone in there twelve times, flag me, let me know this , g ive me some push notifications , and m ake it as simple to capture those codes as possible .” T hat’s whe re your value comes in.

There’s a huge race with a platform that you’re probably already paying for out there if you’re a clinic owner. Take the information that you learned, contact them and say, “I’m already working with you. What do you have that’s going to work for me?” They invested their time to come out with a solution that provides what you need through an RTM program. They’re going to listen. It’s all being evolved at this point. Physiotec has done an awesome job listening, working with it, and continuing to build its program. I’m super happy that our paths crossed the way they did. That’s how I started with them, “Can you make this happen? This is working for us. That’s awesome.”

It’s cool that it seamlessly integrates with your EMR too . Y ou can’t b eat that.

It’s there for me.

I f people wanted to get ahold of you if they have some further questions or ask for some help with implementing it into their practices, how do they get ahold of you?

I haven’t even gotten to the point of establishing a landing page for you to look at or anything like that. I refreshed my LinkedIn profile. Otherwise, email me at Matt@OspreyRTM.com. Eventually, OspreyRTM.com will have a landing page where we can share some information with you.

F or those people who are interested in Physiotec and they want to look into that, i t’s Physiotec .org .

If you schedule a phone meeting over there with the interest of RTM, you will be put in touch with the CEO and me probably in your first meeting so you get the bones because we want to make it successful for you.

M ake sure you let them know that I sent you . I t would be great to have people go your way so you can find out exactly how to implement this and get it on the right track initially . T hanks for joining me , Matt . I appreciate it.

You bet. You’re fun to work with. I told you privately that your show is filling another niche that is awesome as I get to know clinic owners and their minds. Listening to what you have presented is cool. Keep up the good work.

T hanks . I appreciate that . W e will talk to you later.

Have a good one.

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The post The How And What Of Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) With Matt Jurek Of Osprey RTM Solutions appeared first on Physical Therapy Owners Club.