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.

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.

• 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.

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.

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.