Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) has been on the radar for outpatient therapy organizations for years, promising stronger patient engagement and incremental revenue opportunity. But for many practices, rigid reimbursement rules made it difficult to sustain in practice.
As Kathryn Rigda, PT, Director of Clinical Product Management at Raintree, explained during a recent Raintree and Limber Health webinar, RTM has been constrained by an “all-or-nothing” payment structure that didn’t reflect how patients or clinics actually operate.
The new 2026 RTM codes change that. By introducing more flexible thresholds, the updates make RTM easier to justify, easier to manage, and more realistic to scale.
What changed for RTM in 2026?
In the 2026 CMS Final Rule, CMS added new RTM codes that introduce tiered billing for device reporting and treatment management time:
- CPT Code 98985 provides reimbursement for patients with 2 to 15 days of data transmission through RTM MSK devices.
- CPT Code 98979 provides reimbursement for patients with 10 to 19 minutes of monthly treatment management services.
These updates expand how RTM can be billed, adding new flexibility and options in addition to the existing RTM codes.
Why the New 2026 RTM Codes Are a Big Deal
Historically, RTM reimbursement hinged on rigid thresholds—both for patient participation and provider effort.
On the patient side, one key requirement was that patients self-report through their device for a minimum of 16 days out of 30. On the provider side, treatment management required at least 20 minutes of documented time per patient per month and at least one interactive communication with the patient to be billable at all.
In practice, these requirements proved limiting. After all, even highly motivated patients take vacations, miss weekends, or fall out of routine. Providers may still be reviewing data, updating programs, and engaging patients.
Under the previous model, missing a reporting or treatment management threshold didn’t mean that work wasn’t done. It meant reimbursement dropped to zero.
That all-or-nothing dynamic—where meaningful clinical effort and patient engagement could result in no reimbursement—has been one of the biggest reasons organizations delayed RTM adoption or stepped away after early pilots.
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- [Webinar] “Why 2026 Is the ‘Must-Adopt’ Year for RTM: New Codes, New Revenue, New Opportunities”
New Code: 98985 (Musculoskeletal Device)
Before 2026, practices could only bill for device reporting if patients met the higher compliance threshold of at least 16 days in a 30-day period.
That original code still exists and still applies to highly compliant patients. As Kathryn put it: “You can still bill… for those patients that are high compliance, that are doing everything that they need to do.”
What’s new is that there is now a billable path for patients who engage with their RTM program but fall short of the 16-day mark—reporting between 2 and 15 days.
The significance isn’t just that a new code exists. It’s that the all-or-nothing cliff is gone.
What this means for practices: If a patient participates imperfectly—but your team is still monitoring and supporting them—you no longer have to choose between forcing compliance or absorbing unreimbursed work.
| CPT Code | Description |
|---|---|
| 98985 | Remote therapeutic monitoring (e.g., therapy adherence, therapy response, digital therapeutic intervention); device(s) supply for data access or data transmissions to support monitoring of musculoskeletal system, 2 to 15 days in a 30-day period |
New Code: 98979 (Treatment Management)
The same logic applies to RTM treatment management time.
Kathryn described treatment management as the time spent reviewing patient data, updating programs, and managing care through the RTM platform. Importantly, this work isn’t meant to be passive. Billing still requires at least one interactive communication with the patient—such as a phone call—reinforcing that engagement remains central to RTM’s intent.
What changed in 2026 is how partial time is treated. Previously, if staff invested meaningful effort but didn’t reach the minimum threshold, the time was effectively lost.
Kathryn gave a concrete example: “If you were only able to spend 18 minutes this month managing this patient’s program, now you can bill—as opposed to not billing anything because you didn’t hit that 20-minute minimum.”
What this means for practices: Fewer scenarios where real staff effort and time results in zero reimbursement.
| CPT Code | Description |
|---|---|
| 98979 | Remote therapeutic monitoring treatment management services, physician or other qualified health care professional time in a calendar month requiring at least 1 real-time interactive communication with the patient or caregiver during the calendar month; first 10 minutes |
How $0 Becomes $6K/Month in RTM Revenue
To make the impact tangible, Kathryn shared a real patient scenario.
A post-ACL patient logged device data for 12 days in the month. That didn’t necessarily reflect poor adherence. “Doesn’t mean they weren’t doing their home program,” she noted. “We just weren’t tracking it in the app.”
Meanwhile, the clinic still invested time—about 15 minutes reviewing data, messaging the patient, and managing care outside of billable clinic visits.
Under the 2025 rules, that entire scenario would have been reimbursed at $0. In 2026, it changes. That same effort can now result in approximately $60–$67 in reimbursement.
Across a caseload of 100 patients, this can turn into $6,600/month in revenue that would have been $0 last year.
With this change, practices capture revenue for work already being done—and revenue that compounds as programs scale.
Final Takeaway: 2026 RTM Codes Lower the Barrier to Adoption
For organizations that have been watching RTM from the sidelines, 2026 represents a meaningful shift. The updates don’t eliminate the need for a well-run, well-supported program—but they do remove some of the most punitive constraints that made RTM difficult to justify.
For many practices, this year has become a real decision point: not whether RTM is valuable in theory, but whether it’s finally viable in practice.
Want deeper context on how these changes play out operationally? Watch the on-demand webinar “Why 2026 Is the ‘Must-Adopt’ Year for RTM: New Codes, New Revenue, New Opportunities” for a more detailed discussion and real-world application with Raintree, Limber Health, and guest speaker, Casey Russell (VP of Operations and Physical Rehabilitation Network).