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The pandemic resulted in a rise of remote patient monitoring (RPM) utilization and a business boon for health care technology companies. Now that the public health emergency (PHE) has ended, most providers don’t believe it will kill RPM’s home health momentum.
Throughout the pandemic, RPM technology was a tool that allowed home health providers to deliver an additional layer of care.
As such, RPM use among Medicare beneficiaries saw a 555% increase. Specifically, RPM utilization spiked from 91 claims per 100,000 enrollees in February 2020 to 594 claims per 100,000 enrollees in September 2021, according to an analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The increase coincides with the PHE — first declared by the Trump Administration in March of 2020. Among other things, the PHE increased telehealth flexibilities for home health providers.
Still, the PHE did not address reimbursement for RPM, or telehealth in general, in home health care.
During this time, though, telehealth and RPM companies – such as Health Recovery Solutions (HRS) – saw a rise in business with home health providers.
“With the COVID, and the PHE, we had a significant increase in, not just business, but programs and scaling,” Rich Curry, vice president of business development at HRS, told Home Health Care News. “It was good for remote patient monitoring, and I think we’ve helped a lot of home health providers.”
In 2021, HRS claimed to have tripled in revenue growth compared to the previous year. That same year, HRS CEO Jarrett Bauer said that the company’s average home-based care client had increased their telehealth budget by roughly 50%.
The Hoboken, New Jersey-based HRS partners with home-based care providers, helping such organizations set up RPM platforms that include everything from pulse oximeters to blood pressure monitors.
Curry does not foresee the end of the PHE having a significant impact on the home health providers’ RPM use.
“It is addressed to some extent in the PHE, but not in any way that’s going to impact how they’re using it, and what they’re doing with the current programs, so it’s pretty much status quo,” he said.
One organization, Tufts Medicine Care at Home, has invested heavily in RPM.
Tufts Medicine Care at Home has not one, but two RPM programs. One of its programs sits within the visiting nurses association structure.
“If you’re actively getting home care VNA services, you have an option, based on your disease process and other inclusion and exclusion criteria, to have telehealth,” Kathy Duckett, clinical director at Tufts Medicine Care at Home, told HHCN.
As part of the Tufts Medicine health system, the Lawrence, Massachusetts-based Tufts Medicine Care at Home provides home health, hospice and palliative care services.
The organizations’ other RPM program is a standalone one made available to its physician hospital organizations (PHOs).
“Two of our PHOs have chosen to utilize telehealth monitoring for their unstable cardiac and respiratory patients, who would have an increased likelihood for rehospitalization requiring closer monitoring, but don’t meet the criteria to be in a home care situation,” Duckett said.
One of the major wins that came as a result of the PHE was that it encouraged providers to embrace alternative ways of providing care. This was especially important because many patients were already in an immunocompromised state, according to Duckett.
“We had been using RPM prior to the emergency, but I think it really encouraged agencies to look at how they could utilize telehealth to more closely monitor patients who would be at higher risk for rehospitalization, without increasing their exposure to additional nursing visits, but also seeing them in the home when they needed to be seen,” she said.
With the use of RPM, Tufts Medicine Care at Home has been able to significantly decrease its 30-day and 60-day rehospitalization rates.
In 2022, Tufts Medicine Care at Home’s 30-day rehospitalization rate was 9% and the 30-day ED utilization rate was 3% for the telemedicine program, according to Duckett.
Ultimately, Duckett believes that it’s unlikely that the PHE’s end will impede home health care’s use of RPM because of its ability to help providers achieve positive results.
“You have to look at the goals of the organization,” she said. “If decreasing your rehospitalization rate and your ED visit rate is one of your goals, and the [RPM] program is effective, even with PHE gone, you’re going to continue. There’s no direct reimbursement, so there is a cost to the organization. You have to figure out what your ROI is on the program. I think that that’s going to make a difference.”
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