Remote patient monitoring is on the rise. Nearly half of all adults in the United States have been diagnosed with at least one chronic disease, and remote patient monitoring has been shown to help improve outcomes for these patients. It’s estimated that a quarter of Americans will be prescribed remote patient monitoring care by 2025, according to Insider Intelligence. 

Remote patient monitoring is an increasingly popular subset of telehealth that enables various biometric devices – such as blood pressure monitors, weight scales, blood glucose monitors, and heart electrocardiograms – to securely transmit patient data to a provider’s database. For more details about this emerging telehealth trend, read our recent article, “What is Remote Patient Monitoring?”

In this article, we’ll review the top five benefits of remote patient monitoring experienced by patients and providers alike.

Benefit #1: Remote Patient Monitoring Improves Patient Outcomes 

Chronic conditions cost Americans $525 billion annually, and are associated with 1.7 million – or 70% – of deaths each year. It’s estimated that for every 500 patients with multiple chronic conditions receiving remote patient monitoring, health systems can save $5.2 million in annual cost savings, according to Healthcare IT News.

Remote patient monitoring gives providers more accurate and more frequent biometric data points to analyze over time, versus a static snapshot of a patient’s health retrieved during intermittent office visits. As a result, providers are able to make timely, data-informed decisions about new diagnoses, preventative care, early interventions, medication prescriptions, and patient education. 

A 2020 systematic review of 272 published research articles on remote patient monitoring revealed that telemonitoring appears to improve the delivery of healthcare and maximize patient care. Remote patient monitoring also drastically reduces the incidence of hospitalizations and urgent care visits. By delivering preventative care and timely interventions for chronic conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, providers can proactively address health concerns before emergency visits are warranted.

Benefit #2: Remote Patient Monitoring Helps Engage Patients in Their Care

Biometric devices and wearable biosensors offer a non-invasive way for providers to retrieve health data from patients between office visits, regardless of their location. Telemedicine, including RPM, enables patients from rural and underserved populations to receive healthcare without worrying about common barriers to accessing care, such as travel expenses and the ability to take time off work. 

Patients also have more available data, education, resources, and regular support to help them make adjustments to their lifestyle and ensure medication adherence. With the ability to track their progress as they manage their chronic conditions, patients are empowered to make healthier everyday choices with support from their care team. In addition, patients can reduce their medical expenses by booking fewer in-office visits.

Benefit #3: Certain Clinical Operations Are Streamlined by Remote Patient Management

With remote patient monitoring, medical practices and hospitals can free up limited resources and help address staffing and facility shortages, while also extending their reach and impact. All tasks related to remote patient monitoring can be completed by junior-level staff, including medical assistants, qualified administrative staff, and nurses – without impacting physician schedules. 

Remote patient monitoring helps clinicians prioritize appointments and triage care delivery based on how urgently a patient needs to be seen. Providers can also extend their reach to patients in rural and underserved locales remotely, increasing overall patient volume while also reducing waiting room congestion. Gathering certain biometric data at home can also help streamline in-office visits, eliminating duplicative tasks.

Benefit #4: Medical Practices Drive Revenue With Remote Patient Monitoring

Remote patient monitoring is covered by Medicare and other insurers, which means practices that adopt this telehealth program can increase their patient volume, improve productivity, and increase revenue growth. 

The average reimbursement for remote patient monitoring is $120 per month for 20 minutes of communication between the patient and clinical staff about transmitted data or care plan changes, and $207 if an hour is spent. These tasks are often quick to complete each month and can be performed by junior-level clinical staff under the guidance or review of a physician, without interfering with a doctor’s schedule. If 50 patients are enrolled in remote patient monitoring, a practice can make $72,000 per year for just 192 hours of labor, or 20 minutes per patient per month.

Benefit #5: Benchmark Systems’ remote patient monitoring platform comes bundled with interoperable integration.

Interoperability uses emerging technologies such as SMART® and FHIR® to access data and present it for informed decisions and actions. Today’s healthcare market is saturated with closed systems that prevent sharing of information between different health systems and within internal systems. We are interoperability experts empowering clinicians, organizations, and health plans in their quest to derive crucial solutions from diverse data stores. We are ready to design your solution at any scale.