If you run a physical therapy, podiatry, or orthopedic practice in the US, the question isn't really "what is RTM?" — it's "is this something my practice should be doing, and what would it actually involve?" To answer that, you need the plain-English version of a program CMS created in 2022, expanded since, and that many practices still confuse with its older cousin, Remote Patient Monitoring. Let's untangle it.
The short answer
- RTM is a Medicare program (introduced in 2022) that reimburses clinicians for reviewing and acting on therapeutic data — musculoskeletal status, therapy adherence, therapy response — collected between visits by a medical device.
- RTM is not RPM. RPM covers physiologic data (blood pressure, glucose); RTM covers non-physiologic therapeutic data. Different codes, different billing rules, different eligible providers.
- PTs, OTs, and SLPs can bill RTM treatment-management codes — one of the main reasons the program was created. Physicians and other qualified professionals can too.
- It takes real infrastructure: an FDA-registered device, patient consent and education, a data-review workflow, and disciplined documentation. Many practices run it with an operating partner rather than alone.
What RTM actually is
Remote Therapeutic Monitoring is a family of CPT® codes that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began reimbursing in 2022. The idea is simple: much of what determines whether treatment works happens between visits — whether the patient does their exercises, how their musculoskeletal status evolves, whether they respond to the therapy plan. RTM pays clinicians for the work of monitoring that data remotely, reviewing it, and adjusting care accordingly.
The defining feature — and the source of most confusion — is the kind of data involved. RTM covers non-physiologic data: musculoskeletal system status, respiratory system status, therapy adherence, and therapy response, captured by a medical device. Think "how the patient is moving and whether they're following the plan," not "what their vitals are."
RTM vs RPM: the distinction that actually matters
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) came first, and the two get conflated constantly — including by vendors who should know better. The difference is worth being precise about, because the code families, billing rules, and eligible providers are different:
- RPM = physiologic data. Blood pressure, glucose, weight, pulse oximetry — vital-sign-type measurements, generally ordered and billed by physicians and other qualified healthcare professionals under "evaluation and management" rules.
- RTM = therapeutic, non-physiologic data. Musculoskeletal status, therapy adherence, therapy response. Crucially, RTM's treatment-management codes were structured so that therapy professionals — PTs, OTs, SLPs — can bill them, which most therapy practices cannot do under RPM.
For a movement-focused practice, that second bullet is the whole story. RTM is, in effect, the remote-monitoring pathway built for musculoskeletal and rehabilitation care. If a program involves gait, mobility, adherence to a home program, or response to a rehab plan, it lives in RTM — not RPM.
The RTM code family in plain English
Six codes carried the program from 2022, with additions arriving in 2026. Here's what each one means, minus the legalese:
- 98975 — Setup and patient education. A one-time code per episode of care for enrolling the patient, supplying the device, and teaching them how to use it.
- 98976 — Device supply, respiratory. Covers the device and its data transmission for monitoring the respiratory system, billed per 30-day period.
- 98977 — Device supply, musculoskeletal. The equivalent for musculoskeletal monitoring — the code most relevant to PT, podiatry, and ortho. Historically it required data collection on at least 16 of 30 days in the billing period.
- 98980 — Treatment management, first 20 minutes. The clinician's monthly time spent reviewing the data and managing treatment, including at least one interactive communication with the patient in the calendar month.
- 98981 — Treatment management, each additional 20 minutes. An add-on when monitoring and management time goes beyond the first 20 minutes.
- 98984 / 98985 — the 2026 additions. New shorter-duration device-supply codes that lowered the day-count thresholds, making RTM workable for shorter monitoring windows that previously fell below the 16-day bar.
On reimbursement: individual RTM codes have commonly paid in the range of roughly $22 to $54 per code per month under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule — but rates vary by code, year, locality, and setting, and commercial payers set their own terms. Treat published figures as orientation, and verify current rates for your locality before building any projections.
Who can bill RTM
RTM's treatment-management codes are classed as general medicine services rather than evaluation-and-management services, which is what opens the door to physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists — alongside physicians and other qualified healthcare professionals. That said, two caveats belong in bold: scope-of-practice rules vary by state, and payer policies vary by plan. Whether a given clinician can bill a given RTM code for a given patient is a question for your billing professional and the specific payer — not for a blog post, ours included.
What a practice actually needs to run RTM
Four building blocks, none optional:
- A qualifying device. The data must come from a device that meets the FDA's definition of a medical device — in practice, an FDA-registered device capturing the relevant therapeutic data (musculoskeletal status, adherence, or response), not a consumer wellness gadget or a self-reported diary alone.
- Patient consent and education. The patient agrees to be monitored, understands potential cost-sharing, and is taught to use the device — the substance behind code 98975.
- A data-review workflow. Someone has to actually look at the incoming data on a defined cadence, flag what needs clinical attention, and communicate with the patient. Data that nobody reviews is a liability, not a service.
- Documentation discipline. Days of data collection, time spent in review and management, interactive communications, and clinical decisions all need to be recorded well enough to survive an audit.
Common operating models — including partner-operated programs
Practices run RTM along a spectrum. At one end, the fully in-house model: the practice sources devices, enrolls patients, monitors data, and documents everything itself. It offers maximum control, and it's realistic for larger practices with dedicated staff — less so for a three-clinician clinic where nobody has ten spare hours a month.
At the other end sits the partner-operated model, which has become common precisely because of that staffing math: a service partner runs the operational layer — device logistics, patient onboarding and follow-up, monitoring infrastructure, documentation support — while the clinician remains the one directing care: selecting suitable patients, reviewing findings, and making the treatment decisions. The clinical judgment stays where it belongs; the logistics move to someone staffed for them. When evaluating any partner, the questions that matter are the same ones as ever: is the device appropriate, is the documentation audit-ready, and does the clinical decision loop genuinely run through you?
The honest section: where RTM programs stumble
RTM is workable, but the practices that succeed go in clear-eyed about three recurring failure points:
- Patient adherence to wearing the device. The day-count thresholds (historically 16 of 30 days for 98977) mean a patient who abandons the device in week two generates no billable device-supply period. Devices that live inside a patient's existing routine — something worn rather than something extra to do — tend to fare better than devices that demand a new daily habit, but no device solves this entirely. Patient selection and onboarding matter more than the hardware.
- Minimum-day thresholds. Even engaged patients have travel weeks and sick weeks. Programs need enough enrolled patients, and realistic expectations, to absorb months that don't clear the bar. The 2026 shorter-duration codes ease this for brief monitoring windows, but don't eliminate it.
- Documentation of time. 98980/98981 are time-based codes. "We looked at the dashboard sometimes" is not 20 documented minutes of monitoring and management with an interactive communication. Practices without a system for capturing time contemporaneously either underbill or create audit risk — usually both, alternately.
Where movement data fits: RTM built on gait
For MSK and rehabilitation care specifically, one of the most natural RTM data streams is how the patient actually moves in daily life. This is where Baliston sits. The Baliston platform uses an FDA-registered insole equipped with AI Mov-Scan worn in the patient's own shoes during ordinary daily activity — no extra task, no session to schedule — to measure 30+ gait and mobility parameters and track therapy response and adherence between visits, with in-clinic assessment taking about three minutes and the underlying measurement showing 95% concordance with optical motion capture in peer-reviewed research.
Under the Baliston Care model, the program runs the partner-operated way described above: the clinic enrolls suitable patients, a US-based partner operates the logistics, patient follow-up, and documentation layer, and the findings flow back to the clinician, who reviews them and directs care. It's one concrete example of movement-based RTM in practice — used today by 1,500+ practitioners across 50+ countries, with more than 200,000 patient analyses performed on the platform. Whether it fits your practice depends on your patient mix, your payers, and your state's scope rules — which brings us to the fine print that belongs at the end of every honest RTM article.
Disclaimer: This article is general information for practice owners and clinicians, not billing, coding, or legal advice. Coverage, coding rules, and reimbursement rates vary by payer, plan, and state, and change over time — verify current requirements with your billing professional and the relevant payers before making decisions. Nothing here is a promise or projection of revenue. CPT® is a registered trademark of the American Medical Association.
