Driving Effective Patient Onboarding in Remote Patient Monitoring Programs

The following is a guest article by Ryan Clark, VP of Client Solutions at Optimize Health.

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) has the power to fundamentally change how healthcare providers care for and engage with patients.  RPM provides a unique opportunity to collect, monitor, and trend data on a daily basis, so you are no longer limited to occasional in-office visits to monitor chronic and acute conditions.  The benefits can be life-changing for patients if they are successfully onboarded in an RPM program.

Effective onboarding sets the foundation for ongoing patient adherence and engagement, which drives both the clinical and financial results for practices.   There are three primary components to successful onboarding:

1. Patient identification
2. Patient education
3. Onboarding appointment

Patient Identification

The first step is determining which patients are most likely to benefit from RPM.  Many practices start with one condition, such as hypertension, and then expand into others. This allows the care team to focus on one, condition specific care plan to start, and helps to establish your practice’s clinical goals for RPM.

You may want to ramp quickly and target all hypertensive patients or you could choose to add patients more methodically by prioritizing specific groups of patients, such as patients with uncontrolled hypertension or patients on hypertension medication.

While clinical necessity is the most critical factor in identifying RPM candidates, patients with insurance coverage may be more likely to consent to the program.

• Medicare: Covered as a Part B service, deductible and copay may apply without supplemental insurance
• Medicaid: Over half states cover it and can have specific restrictions by state
• Commercial Insurance: Varies widely by plan, but coverage is increasing; confirming eligibility in advance is strongly recommended

A few additional best practices to keep in mind:

1. Use filters in your EHR to identify patients. Flagging patients in your EHR that are RPM-eligible can also help build physician awareness.
2. Ordering provider education and engagement is critical. The most successful RPM programs have invested the time to ensure all providers understand the benefits of RPM before launching the program.
3. Set up clear processes and workflows for securing RPM orders and consent.  Ideally, pre-flagging RPM eligible patients allows you to obtain an order before their appointment.

Patient Education

Once RPM eligible patients are identified, your entire practice – physicians, clinical staff, and admin staff – need to be comfortable talking to patients about RPM.  We recommend always trying to walk in the patient’s shoes and making the conversation as tailored to their condition as possible.

For example, here are a few ways to position the benefits of RPM taking the patient’s perspective.

Improves their health 

High blood pressure can create complications like heart disease or stroke.  Taking your blood pressure everyday will help us adjust your medications and support you in making healthy lifestyle choices that keep you out of the hospital and emergency room.

Allows them to take control of their health

You don’t have to wait until your next office appointment to see if you have any health issues.  Daily readings help you and us manage your chronic condition more proactively.

Makes their life easier

With RPM, you can stop writing down your readings on paper and trying to make sense of what to do if you have a high or low reading.  A trained care team member will be reviewing the data to help you make the right decisions.

The Onboarding Appointment

Now it’s time for the actual onboarding appointment. We see that programs with the highest patient adherence all establish a strong connection between the patient and the clinical goal of managing their condition effectively, and face to face engagement facilitates this.  Practices with the most successful RPM programs plan for both:

1. An RPM Onboarding Event – dedicating staff time and rooms exclusively to RPM onboarding appointments for one or more or days.  This enables you to ramp your RPM program quickly.   It’s also a great opportunity to partner with your RPM vendor to learn how to make RPM successful at your practice.
2. Ongoing Onboarding – RPM onboarding should be a continuous process. Your practice is likely seeing many patients every day that could benefit from RPM and routine appointments are a great place to discuss RPM.   We recommend scanning upcoming appointments daily or weekly to identify potential RPM patients.

The onboarding appointment sets the stage for successful patient involvement and commitment.  We always think about the 5Es of onboarding:

• Educate the patient about their condition and how to improve it
• Engage with the patient in meaningful way so they want to communicate with you on a regular basis
• Equip the patient with the appropriate device(s) and coach them on proper use
• Encourage the patient regularly with phones calls, video chats, text messages
• Empower the patient to take control of their own health

Patients who just have a device handed to them as they leave will likely have a different experience in the program than those with a dedicated RPM onboarding appointment.

What’s Next?

The onboarding appointment is the time to set the patient up for success, but it’s imperative to keep the momentum going by starting monitoring outreach the very next day.

A strong patient onboarding experience will result in highly engaged patients and allow the practice to easily identify and provide the right care, for the right patients, at the right time. The potential for positive clinical outcomes and improved care experiences with RPM is tremendous if your monitoring staff can regularly engage with patients in a meaningful way.

About Ryan Clark

As VP of Client Solutions at Optimize Health, Ryan Clark is responsible for supporting Optimize Health clients launch, grow, and manage their remote patient monitoring (RPM) programs.  As an expert in digital patient engagement, he is responsible for the client success, implementation, and technical support teams.  Prior to Optimize Health, Ryan was the Senior Director of Client Success at Phreesia and currently serves on the Board of Directors at Staterra, Inc.