13
Ordering providers
450
Patients monitored
93%
Patients billable for 99457
All-in on RPM
Christine Meyer and Associates is a 13-provider practice headquartered in Exton, PA, and their priority has always been to provide top quality, patient-centered care, especially for their hundreds of patients who have hypertension and diabetes.
Similar to other practices, they didn’t like waiting to see patients every few months in office, so in 2020 they partnered with Optimize Health to bring RPM to their patients. One year later, they now have more than 450 patients monitored through the program, and Lauren Marohn serves as the practice’s RPM lead who oversees the entire RPM program.
Lauren hadn’t heard of RPM prior to CMMD, but now that she’s overseeing their program, her thoughts are clear: “RPM just allows us to deliver good medicine.”
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“Every provider here has made RPM part of their standard care plans for patients with hypertension, congestive heart failure, and weight control, so it has really helped with our continued program growth and patient results.”
-Lauren Marohn, RPM Lead at Christine Meyer and Associates
Operationalizing RPM: A Day in the Life of a RPM Lead
As the RPM program lead, she helps grow the program by supporting both the providers and patients alike. On the provider side, Lauren says, “Every provider here has made RPM part of their standard care plans for patients with hypertension, congestive heart failure, and weight control, so part of their job is to identify those patients who would benefit from real-time monitoring.” In addition, the practice also uses their EHR records to look for patients with specific diagnoses and determine which patients would benefit from RPM, and also advertises the program via targeted newsletters as well.
“Every six months, we send a newsletter to all of our Medicare patients to let them know we offer RPM and how it helps them manage their chronic conditions. They can then opt-in and schedule an appointment to get onboarded into the program, or they can do it at their next appointment and have a face-to-face conversation with their provider about the program,” she says.
One week after each patient is onboarded, Lauren calls them to answer any questions and reiterate that RPM is part of their care program, and how often they should take their readings. She also uploads each patients’ readings for each provider so they can start tracking results and measurements over time.
“Every six months, we send a newsletter to all of our Medicare patients to let them know we offer RPM and how it helps them manage their chronic conditions. They can then opt-in and schedule an appointment to get onboarded into the program, or they can do it at their next appointment and have a face-to-face conversation with their provider first.”
Lauren Marohn RPM Lead at Christine Meyer and Associates
Once the patients are enrolled and active in the program, she uses the Optimize Health platform to help her prioritize patient outreach and communications each day. “The platform clearly shows which patients have had critical readings outside their approved thresholds, so I can see who needs help or needs to be contacted immediately. After I contact those patients, I like to view patients by conditions, last reading taken, or number of readings that month so you can see immediately where you need to target your efforts.”
A huge part of CMMD’s success with RPM is how Lauren has built trusted relationships with their patients. She gives each patient her direct extension so they can call her anytime if they have a question, and she reiterates that RPM is saving them from having an unnecessary critical event.
“Sometimes patients need a refresher on why this program is valuable, and it’s all about the messaging. All month long when I’m contacting patients and looking over their readings, I explain that we’re preventing the alternative–we’re stopping anything bad from happening with RPM, we’re stopping hospitalizations, we’re stopping strokes, and clicks for them.”
She and her team have seen how RPM has been able to catch critical events before they require emergency care or hospitalizations. “Because I do a lot of patient outreach each month, I’ve become very familiar with which patients we need to be looking out for, what their normal readings look like, and how they should be trending over time. We had one patient whose blood pressure kept getting higher and higher, and so I called the patient immediately and said this reading is abnormal for you, so brought them into the office and gave them medication to slow their heart rate and did a cardiac workup to get them back to normal, and saved them from a hospitalization.”
Future Plans: Doubling Program Growth
CMMD has expanded their patient activation by creating customized patient education packets, which have been good for older adults who like having things written down on paper. “We have printed out packets that explain the program, my contact information, how often to take their readings, and Optimize Health’s one-sheets on how to take a good reading for blood pressure, scales, and diabetes,” Lauren says.
Her goal for the next year is to keep growing the program and helping patients achieve better success with their chronic conditions. “I hope to someday have 900 patients enrolled in the program so that we keep delivering better care save them from hospitalizations and other critical events.”
“This program saves lives by giving us real-time controlled readings, and our patients really are thankful for it. RPM is just good medicine.”
-Lauren Marohn, Christine Meyer and Associates
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