Physician practices are facing unprecedented financial challenges secondary to the pandemic.  A significant number of practices are not aware of revenue generating virtual services (see table 1. below) that are an optimal way of improving care while earning additional revenue.  

The virtual services that we recommend practices explore or re-explore include:

  • Telephone E/M services (critical during the pandemic and well-paying)
  • Remote Patient (Physiologic) Monitoring (expanding rapidly)
  • E-visits (underutilized service)
  • Chronic Care Management (see why here)
  • Principal Care Management (New for 2020: learn more)

 Key elements of these remote services include: 

  • They can be performed remotely.
  • They were designed by CMS and adopted by certain payers to improve the quality of care.
  • They allow practices to provide a much high level of care coordination and monitoring.
  • They represent a potentially major source of supplemental income.
  • Payers have rapidly modified their requirements and reimbursement levels for these services.
  • Physicians, PAs, NPs, CNSs, and general medical staff can convert non-billable hours into revenue generating services.
  • They have the potential to increase patient retention and recruitment.
  • In most cases there is not additional cost to the patient.
  • Many practices have been successful with these programs.

 

 Consulting Services

Apollo HIT’s expert resources are led by a physician coding professional with over 20 years of experience with health IT product development and implementation. Each of these services, including telehealth, have unique and evolving compliance requirements.  They are provided at low cost. Our goal is to ensure that your practice is compliant with telehealth and other remote service requirements. 

Remote Services Implementation and Compliance. Our team will assess your current use and billing practices for telehealth encounters and provide best practice recommendations. This may result in a marked improvement in efficiency and compliance, while ensuring that you have optimal billing practices.  We will also assess your practice for a range of underutilized remote services and their revenue potential – customized for your specialty and patient population.  Underutilized clinicians and staff members can be repurposed to provide these services, making up for revenue shortfalls. 

Reimbursement Potential for Remote Services.  Reimbursement varies based on volumes, but a fully engaged nurse practitioner that provides these services for 10 hours per week can generate over $50,000 dollars per year in new revenue.  These services do not conflict with reimbursement for office visits or other procedures, meaning they represent a completely new source of revenue. The services and their income potential for 50 eligible services per month are listed below: 

  Table 1. Revenue Potential for Virtual Services 

 

Service Name # Services/
Month
Monthly
Revenue
Annual
Revenue
Telephone E/M Services 50 $4,000 $48,000
Remote Physiologic
Monitoring
50 $6,000 $72,000
E-Visit Services 50 $1,750 $21,000
Chronic Care
Management (Provider)
50 $3750 $45,000
Principal Care
Management (Provider)
50 $3750 $45,000
Estimated Payments for Remote Services (Medicare)

There are a number of considerations for each of these services. Many of them have new or updated requirements. All of them have specific reporting and/or requirements. 

Please contact us at: Michael@ApolloHIT.com for more information.