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Learn what Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) is, how it works, the 2026 CPT codes, who can bill Medicare for it, and where it fits in modern rehab care.
Most of a rehab patient’s recovery doesn’t happen in the clinic. It happens at home, at work, in daily routines, in the days between appointments, where clinicians have no direct visibility into how the plan of care is actually unfolding. That gap has always been part of rehab practice, but until recently there was no structured way to close it.
Remote Therapeutic Monitoring, or RTM, is the framework that changes this. It gives clinicians a way to view valuable data, including monitored adherence and response between visits, while also recognizing that work as billable care under a specific set of CPT codes. RTM turns the informal follow-up work rehab clinicians have always done into a structured, reimbursed part of the care model.
RTM is the remote monitoring of non-physiological patient data through a digital platform that meets the FDA definition of Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) or uses an eligible monitoring device. The core mechanic is straightforward: the patient engages with the platform between visits, the platform captures structured data about their therapy participation and progress, and the clinician reviews that data as part of the ongoing plan of care.
What RTM monitors falls into a few defined categories: therapy adherence, therapy response, pain self-reports, functional status, objective musculoskeletal data points, and other patient-related outcomes. It doesn’t track vital signs or physiological measurements, those belong to a separate program called Remote Patient Monitoring.
RTM also isn’t telehealth. Telehealth is a scheduled virtual visit that substitutes for an in-person appointment; RTM is the structured monitoring layer that runs alongside all care to capture what’s happening between visits. And while RTM often uses home exercise program software as part of its infrastructure, RTM itself is a defined billing pathway tied to specific monitoring, communication, and documentation requirements, not just software.
The single distinction that shapes everything about RTM is the difference between RTM and Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM). RPM tracks physiological data through connected devices, blood pressure, glucose, heart rate, oxygen saturation, built around chronic disease management in primary care, cardiology, and pulmonology. RTM tracks non-physiological data: the therapy-related information rehab clinics actually generate. The two programs share a similar structural shape (setup codes, device supply codes, management time codes), but they have different CPT codes, different eligible providers, and can’t be billed together for the same patient in the same month. For rehab clinics, RTM is almost always the applicable program. Wibbi’s guide to RTM vs RPM billing differences covers the code-by-code comparison in depth.
CMS established RTM for three broad condition categories: musculoskeletal conditions (which includes many neurological conditions affecting movement and function), respiratory conditions, and behavioral health. Musculoskeletal RTM is by far the most widely used in rehab settings, covering orthopedic recovery, post-surgical rehab, chronic pain, sports injuries, hand therapy, pelvic health, and neurological conditions with a functional or motor component. The 2026 device-supply CPT codes (98985 and 98977) are currently specific to musculoskeletal data; respiratory and behavioral health RTM use different code mechanics and generally sit outside most rehab workflows.
The RTM workflow follows a five-step arc that fits inside the way rehab care already runs. Step one: patient enrollment, with documented consent and substantive patient education on how the platform fits into their plan of care. Step two: ongoing data collection as the patient engages with the platform between visits, logging exercises, reporting symptoms, tracking functional progress. Step three: clinician review of the transmitted data as part of the plan of care. Step four: patient engagement between visits through messages, calls, and plan adjustments that respond to what the data is showing. Step five: billing when monitored-day and management-time thresholds are met.
This workflow doesn’t replace in-person visits, RTM adds structured visibility between visits while the patient continues receiving their prescribed clinic-based care. Most of the practical work RTM formalizes is work rehab clinicians were already doing informally, like checking in on adherence, adjusting home programs, catching problems before the next appointment. What RTM adds is the framework to document that work consistently and recognize it as billable clinical care.
Medicare recognizes RTM billing for four provider categories: physicians, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists. The 2024 CMS Final Rule also clarified that PTs and OTs in private practice can provide general supervision for RTM services furnished by PTAs and OTAs, with the appropriate assistant modifier (CQ for PTAs, CO for OTAs) applied to management time claims. Coverage isn’t uniform across all payers or disciplines: Medicare doesn’t currently cover chiropractors for RTM, SLP-billed RTM has been inconsistent in practice, and commercial payers vary in their reimbursement policies. Verifying coverage per patient before enrollment is faster than chasing denials after submission.
The 2026 RTM code set has six codes that work as a system: 98975 (Initial RTM setup and patient education, once per episode of care), 98985 (RTM device capturing 2–15 days of MSK data in 30 days, new for 2026), 98977 (RTM device capturing 16+ days of MSK data in 30 days), 98979 (10–19 minutes of RTM treatment-management time, new for 2026), 98980 (20 minutes of RTM treatment-management time), and 98981 (each additional 20 minutes of RTM treatment-management time). Setup happens once per episode, device supply is billed once per 30-day period based on monitored days (either 98985 or 98977, never both in the same period), and management time is billed once per calendar month based on logged clinician time. The 2026 update introduced 98985 and 98979 to address gaps where shorter monitoring periods and shorter management windows previously fell outside the billing structure. Our 2026 RTM CPT code overview walks through each code in depth.
A concrete example clarifies how RTM actually runs in practice. A PT evaluates a patient in a formal clinic visit, documents the clinical need for RTM as part of the plan of care, and issues the RTM device with patient education at the evaluation. The patient begins logging adherence and response at home while continuing to attend the prescribed in-clinic treatment sessions. The PT reviews the transmitted data weekly, messages the patient about trends, and discusses adjustments outside billable clinic time, a workflow that continues through the management phases as in-clinic visits taper, supporting the patient’s transition to independent home exercise program management.
Along the way, the RTM data informs clinical decisions in specific ways: adherence trends reveal whether progress is stalling because of the program or because of compliance, pain reports surface flare-ups between visits before they become setbacks, and functional updates support discharge readiness decisions with objective evidence rather than intuition alone. RTM is most valuable for plans of care that extend beyond a few weeks, post-surgical recovery, chronic conditions, longer rehab arcs, and multidisciplinary cases where the between-visit picture matters clinically.
The clinical value of RTM extends beyond billing. Continuous visibility into adherence enables earlier intervention when patients start to disengage, before the drift compounds into a full drop-off. Structured monitoring supports better adherence to home exercise programs by closing the accountability gap that traditional workflows leave open. And plans of care become more responsive because the therapist can adjust based on what’s actually happening between visits, not on what’s reconstructed from a two-week gap.
The operational value is equally important: RTM gives clinics a structured way to scale between-visit care across a full caseload without adding manual phone calls, spreadsheets, and follow-up tracking. The financial value, billing under the RTM codes, is meaningful but secondary to the clinical case. The strongest RTM programs are clinically driven first, with reimbursement supporting the work rather than motivating it.
Many rehab patients see multiple disciplines simultaneously, stroke recovery often involves PT, OT, and SLP; post-TBI rehab commonly requires all three; pediatric cases regularly integrate multiple disciplines within the same practice. The key constraint in these settings is that RTM codes can only be billed by one therapy discipline per patient per episode of care. If the OT is billing RTM, the PT and SLP cannot bill the same codes for that same patient in the same episode.
For multidisciplinary teams, this means deciding upfront which discipline owns RTM enrollment for each patient. The decision typically goes to the discipline whose monitored data best supports the primary goals of the plan of care, not necessarily the discipline seeing the patient most often.
Medicare sets the most established RTM framework, and CMS definitions form the underlying structure the rest of the industry works from. Commercial payers, workers’ compensation, and auto insurance vary in their acceptance and reimbursement policies, but the underlying RTM definitions don’t change from one payer to another, what varies is which payers reimburse, how much, and under what documentation requirements. A few realities are worth checking per patient before enrollment: some commercial plans require prior authorization, SLP-billed RTM has been inconsistent even under Medicare, and chiropractors aren’t currently covered under Medicare for RTM.
A working RTM program has a few essential operational pieces: a qualifying RTM platform (FDA-defined as Software as a Medical Device or built around eligible monitoring devices), a defined patient enrollment workflow with structured education and consent at setup, ongoing tracking of monitored days and management time against the CPT code thresholds, and audit-ready documentation that ties every billed code to the plan of care.
RTM works best when it fits into existing clinical operations rather than running as a parallel system. Clinics that treat RTM as a separate program tend to see the burden compound; clinics that integrate RTM into their existing intake, evaluation, and treatment workflows tend to see it scale without significant additional staff time. The right platform handles the tracking and documentation layer automatically, manual tracking is where audit risk and operational burden tend to concentrate.
Wibbi is a rehab-focused RTM platform built around the full code lifecycle: structured enrollment with documented consent and patient education, real-time monitored-day tracking against the 98985 and 98977 thresholds, management-time logging against the 98979, 98980, and 98981 thresholds with CQ and CO modifier application handled at the practitioner level, and billing-ready documentation prepared as work happens rather than reconstructed at month-end. Wibbi meets FDA regulatory requirements for RTM, integrates with rehab EMRs, supports both self-managed and turnkey RTM models, and works across physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, pediatric therapy, chiropractic, and pelvic health clinics.
RTM is a workflow change, not just a software purchase. The clinics that succeed with it treat enrollment, monitoring, and billing as a structured program rather than an add-on feature grafted onto existing operations. A practical starting sequence: identify the patient populations where RTM clinically fits best (post-surgical cases, chronic conditions, longer plans of care), choose a platform built specifically for rehab, and define the operational ownership of enrollment, monitoring, and billing before the program launches.
