CLIENT FREQUENTLY-ASKED-QUESTIONS (FAQ)

Your practice will assign a lead manager from your office, and BlueStar will assign an account manager for your practice. Those two people will walk their organization through the steps necessary to properly begin RPM operations. 

We have a one-page handout on onboarding, and a 40-item checklist. But briefly, they will:

  • Get the necessary paperwork completed between practice and BlueStar
  • Hold a kickoff meeting for all concerned, to answer questions and decide on process
  • Providing training on the software for staff and physicians
  • Establish the response protocol for monitoring 
  • Set up the process by which patients will be entered into the RPM program After the LOI is signed, BlueStar will send the practice a three-ring binder with all the information needed for a smooth and effective onboarding.

It could take as little as a week—it could take three months. It all depends on the practice. We typically budget a month as a reasonable time frame from signing of the Letter of Intent, to onboarding the first patient.

The software is relatively intuitive. After getting a log-in, most staffers can operate with virtually no training. We’ll hold a phone/zoom training session for interested staff. We also have a 50-page manual for drill-down into details, if necessary. And we’re always available for any questions and additional training. For physicians, we typically hold a 15-minute overview, and they’re good to go.

In the first week of each month, BlueStar will invoice the practice for the services performed during the previous month. We will provide a list of each CPT code provided for each patient. The data is also available, through the software, to your staff. The software provides the documentation and audit trail to justify and support the billing. With the information provided by BlueStar, your billing team can submit the appropriate document to CMS.

As many as you want, based on medical need. At least one peripheral is required to meet CMS requirements, but there is no limit.

If the doctor prescribes RPM on Monday, BlueStar will typically ship on the following day, or Tuesday. We ship via two-day Fedex, so the patient will get the equipment on Thursday. The day after arrival, we’ll call and walk her through unpacking the equipment, setting it up, and using it. So a patient referred by a doctor on Monday will usually be operating and reporting her data by Friday.
We ship to the patient’s home, rather than try to issue the equipment in the office. Issuing the equipment in the office consumes time and resources on the part of the office staff.

Not very. The patient needs to open the box, take out the tablet, plug it into the wall, and press the “on” button. The peripherals have been pre-loaded, pre-paired, and pre-tested. She has to take the blood pressure cuff out of the box, put it on her arm, and press the button. After that, she’ll look at the tablet to see the reading appear. BlueStar has 20,000 family-years of experience in helping seniors use technologies in their homes. Most of the time, we can handle it all with the senior over the phone. Sometimes, we’ll ask a caregiver or adult child to step in to assist. A couple times a year, we’ll send a technician to the home to help, but that is extremely rare.
Everything. Inventory, kitting, programming, shipping, training the patient, replacement of lost or broken items, additional shipments of additional peripherals as needed, cellular connectivity devices for homes without wifi, customer service, technical service. Our goal is to completely remove the issue of equipment from the list of things the practice has to worry about.

After the onboarding is complete, the practice does two things:

  • Enroll patients using the online form, which takes about 5 minutes per patient.
  • When BlueStar’s monitoring team identifies a health issue with a patient, follow up with it as appropriate.

There is no risk or up-front investment on the part of the practice, until the doctor/NP prescribes RPM, and BlueStar ships it. At that point, BlueStar will begin to bill for services rendered under the applicable CPT codes, and the practice will have the financial obligation to pay those bills.

 

None. At any time, the practice can end the agreement, and stop providing RPM services through BlueStar.
RPM is based on helping with chronic conditions, so we don’t want to issue it if the intended use is for a short period of time. But sometimes, patients will accept the equipment, and then refuse to use it, and they’ll effectively quit the program. If that happens, BlueStar will bear the financial burden of that event. Not the practice. We will attempt to coordinate with the patient to get some of the equipment returned, but whatever the results, there will be no financial burden on the part of the practice.
Yes. If you’re already doing CCM, or considering it, contact BlueStar so we can coordinate to ensure that the practice meets all the applicable requirements. Or, we can do the CCM for you.
  • Very little.
  • The practice staff will enroll the patient into the RPM program via a five-minute web form.
  • There is a patient consent form, most easily done when the patient is in the office for a visit.
  • The staff will be involved if the patient has an issue that requires attention. They’d set up a telehealth session with the provider.
It can if you want it to. The level of interaction depends on the EMR, and on how much you want it to interact. The VitalCare software can be directly connected to your EMR—the issue is how much of the VitalCare software you want imported into your EMR, if any. BlueStar is happy to discuss to see what works best for your practice.
It depends on your EMR, and how much connection you want. We can discuss. The systems are built to talk to each other—it’s just a matter of connecting them. So it’s not free, but it’s not a $10,000 investment. We recommend doing RPM for a while before making any hard-wired connection to an EMR.

In general, we tell our clients:

  • If you do nothing other than let BlueStar run an RPM program, the practice might generate a profit of approximately $30 per patient per month (pppm), or about $360 annually for patients enrolled in RPM.
  • If the practice does a moderate amount of telehealth (provider review of data 3x/year, plus annual wellness visit, plus 2 other interactions annually), the practice might generate a profit of approximately $60-70 pppm, or about $800 annually.
  • If the practice is actively involved in telehealth using the HIPAA-compliant tablet provided by RPM, (“active” = the moderate listed above, plus quarterly patient interactions), the practice might generate a profit of approximately $100 pppm, or about $1200 annually.
  • If the practice wants to generate additional revenues/profits, it can:
    • Do the monitoring instead of having BlueStar do it.
    • Ask BlueStar to do CCM for certain patients, in addition to the RPM.
No. RPM fees cover the cost of the tablet. Any additional use is entirely free to the practice.
No. The tablet is locked down to be used specifically for RPM and for telehealth interaction with the doctor’s office. No e-mail, no web browsing, no games, no photos. The idea is that it is a medical device, dedicated to that purpose.

RPM is based on helping people with chronic, long-term conditions use in-home health measurement equipment to monitor and manage those conditions. The most frequently-found conditions are hypertension, obesity, CHF, and COPD. It has been clinically shown that measuring a parameter daily, and interacting with a third-party who is tracking that measurement as an external monitor, can help in either improving the condition, or detecting anomalies before they become crises.

BlueStar TeleHealth is a service-disabled-veteran-owned small business just outside Washington DC. It has been providing health and wellness technologies in the homes of seniors since 2013, and has thousands of clients nationally. BlueStar is veteran owned and operated; its CEO and COO are retired two-star admirals; it has 15 generals and admirals from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard on its advisory board, including doctors and nurses; it is certified by the Veterans Administration. BlueStar won the SBA Small Business of the Year award in Maryland, and has been recognized by the Governor. BlueStar provides RPM services under the brand name BlueStar TeleHealth.

Translate »
Your Name(Required)