A Contractor Advisory Committee (CAC) Meeting on Remote Physiologic Monitoring (RPM) and Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) for Non-Implantable Devices has been flagged by several organizations. The meeting, which is due to take place on the final day of this month has been noticed by both the American Telemedicine Association and Alliance for Connected Care, and subsequently, a letter was written by the telehealth advocacy organizations. The letter addressed to Novitas Solutions and First Coast Service Options, the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) sponsoring the meeting, was publicized on the twenty first of February, a week before the meeting is due to commence. Six of the seven MACs are slated to be present at the meeting.
The following was deemed insufficient or a flaw by the organizations:
- bibliography lacks enough papers with weight.
- the section of discussion is not lengthy enough.
- both the RPM and RTM discussions should be in separate meetings
- several clinical situations are not considered.
- several illness states are not considered.
In the letter, a more thorough literature is demanded, due to the fact that the bibliography was lacking approximately forty-five papers of research, some of which were conducted by well-known doctors who used RPM. The healthcare organizations also placed emphasis on the distinct s between RPM and RTM services, and that it is unacceptable that meeting organizers allocated only seventy-five minutes for the discussion of both combined.
Kyle Zebley, Senior Vice President, Public Policy American Telemedicine Association and Chris Adamec, Vice President, Alliance for Connected Care commented on the possible uses of both RPM AND RTM services, stating: “The ability to utilize remote patient monitoring (whether RPM or RTM) in managing patients posthospitalization, and those patients with ongoing chronic disease is essential to better health outcomes. RPM and RTM provides better patient compliance and improved ability for physicians to manage care outside of the institution.”
The organizations also asked that the meeting organizers broaden the data under consideration to cover more medical issues that RPM/RTM can assist treat. The letter shows concern for the possible repercussions of undervaluing the importance of RPM: “There is a broad range of chronic conditions for which utilizing RPM and RTM are appropriate, and limiting the evidentiary review indicates you are considering limiting an LCD to only the conditions considered. This would leave clinicians currently using RPM outside of cardiology with no feasible way to continue.”
