Living with chronic pain is one of the most difficult tasks imaginable. Here's how remote therapeutic monitoring changes the math.
Chronic pain is rarely solved by a single intervention. The patients with the best outcomes are the ones who can stay engaged with a care plan between visits — and that's exactly what most of the healthcare system is bad at supporting.
The gap between visits is where progress is lost
A typical pain patient sees their physician every 4–8 weeks. In between, they're managing medications, attempting stretches, navigating flares, and trying to make sense of progress. Without structure, the in-between time turns into guesswork. Patients arrive at the next visit unsure what happened.
What RTM actually does
Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) closes that gap with three concrete things: a daily check-in (pain score and medication confirmation, 30 seconds), a structured stretch routine assigned by your physician (with a 15-second guided timer for each stretch), and an on-call coordinator who reviews your data and reaches out when something looks off.
The patient never has to remember to log anything — the app prompts at the same time every day. The clinician never has to chase patients down — the dashboard surfaces who's at risk.
What it costs
RTM is reimbursed by Medicare and most commercial payers under CPT codes 98975 (one-time setup), 98980 (first 20 minutes per month), and 98981 (each additional 20 minutes). For Medicare patients with a chronic pain diagnosis, the out-of-pocket cost is typically $0 after deductible.
The results we see
Across our active patient panel, 70%+ hit the 16-day RTM threshold in their first full month. Patients report measurable pain reduction within 30–60 days when they stay on the program. The strongest predictor of success is consistency, not initial pain level.