CMS finalizes three Chronic Care Remote Physiologic Patient Monitoring codes that will improve patient outcomes and reduce costs

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Nov. 12, 2018 - PRLog -- CMS posted the calendar year 2019 final Physician Fee Schedule on November 1, that included three new codes for Chronic Care Remote Physiologic Monitoring. Remote patient monitoring provides a turnkey sustainable solution to improve patient adherence and facilitate communication between physician and their patients to deliver better quality of care and reduce hospitalizations and healthcare costs.

"Automation developed by Sargas International allows physicians to review patient generated real time physiological data i.e. tracking step activity, heart rate, weight, blood pressure, blood glucose, symptoms, pulse oximetry, etc. on a cloud platform that they can login and review from anywhere and capture the revenue for Chronic Care Remote Physiologic Monitoring while delivering better patient outcomes and reducing costs," said Git Patel, Founder and CEO of Sargas. "Patients can also manually input their data in Sargas patient portal for their physicians to review."

The three codes for Remote Physiologic Monitoring are:
99453 Initiating a patient code pays $21, 99454 activating the device and software pays about $69 for every thirty days and 99457 for 20 minutes of review of patient physiologic data every month under the direct supervision of the physician.

In 2018 CMS unbundled 99091 and allowed for remote patient monitoring billing. CMS made a paradigm shift with this and now with these new codes that replace 99091 CMS is reducing the burden for physicians by allowing for clinical staff to do some of the functions under the supervision of the physician or health care professional. The major changes from 2018 to 2019 are:

2018
30 minutes of review limited to physician or qualified health professional every 30 days.

2019
99457: 20 minutes of review allows for time spent by clinical staff under direct supervision by physician or qualified health professional per calendar month.

Additional codes
99453: Education for patient to learn the software and device is paid for initiating each patient.
99454: Device/software platform fee paid for receiving patient alerts and physiologic data from the patient's individual device every 30 days.

For more information go to: 2018-24170.pdf
Read pages 141,142, and 453 to 463 of the CY 2019 Physician Fee Schedule posted by CMS on Nov 1, 2018.

Please also go to https://spacinternational.com/remote-patient-monitoring.php to learn more.

"Several hundred physicians have several thousand patients nationwide that are utilizing Sargas platform. Sargas is at the forefront of Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020 such that our systems are interoperable among providers and can collect share and use the health data to improve health, healthcare and reduce costs through our ONCHIT certified and HIPAA compliant Chronic Care Physician, Patient and Pharmacy portals, patient engagement, FDA approved mHealth Applications for medication adherence," continued Git Patel.