RTM vs. RPM: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters

Remote care is changing the way clinics engage patients and get paid for the work they already do. Two of the most talked-about pathways are Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) and Remote Physiologic Monitoring (RPM). While they sound similar, they were designed for different use cases, follow different rules, and support different types of providers. Confusing the two is common, but it can lead to compliance problems, denied claims, or the wrong technology choice.

Understanding how RTM and RPM differ is essential if you want to build a remote care program that fits your specialty, your workflow, and your patients.

Different Purposes, Different Data

RPM was built for primary care and chronic disease management. It focuses on the ongoing measurement of physiologic data, like blood pressure, blood glucose, oxygen saturation, or weight. These are hard metrics captured by FDA-cleared physiologic devices, often used to manage conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or COPD. The goal of RPM is to track biological risk factors that could lead to clinical deterioration.

RTM was created more recently, and it fills a gap for specialties like physical therapy, orthopedics, and rehab. Rather than tracking physiological signals, RTM collects data on therapy adherence, pain levels, functional ability, and other patient-reported outcomes. It is built for monitoring recovery, not disease progression. The devices used for RTM can be software-based, as long as they qualify as medical devices and can capture data passively or through structured patient input.

In short, RPM is about clinical stability. RTM is about functional progress.

Who Can Bill

This is where the distinction becomes even more important. RPM must be ordered and supervised by a physician or advanced practice provider. It often involves clinical staff to manage and review the data. Physical therapists, occupational therapists, and other rehab professionals cannot bill RPM codes directly under Medicare rules.

RTM is different. It was specifically structured so that non-physician providers—including physical therapists, occupational therapists, and even clinical psychologists—can bill for remote monitoring services independently. This opens up new recurring revenue pathways for practices that have traditionally delivered a lot of care between visits without ever being reimbursed for it.

For clinics in musculoskeletal care, RTM is the only billing model that fits both the scope of work and the provider type.

Different Code Sets and Compliance Rules

RTM and RPM each use a unique set of CPT codes, and the billing requirements are not the same. RPM codes focus on physiologic data transmission, with strict rules around device type, data volume, and staff involvement. RTM codes, such as 98975 through 98981, focus on therapeutic data and allow more flexibility in how the information is collected and reviewed.

Both sets require documentation of clinical relevance and time spent, but applying the wrong rules to the wrong program is a recipe for billing errors. For example, using an RTM code to bill for blood pressure monitoring is not allowed, just as using RPM codes to bill for home exercise adherence is not appropriate.

Why the Difference Matters

Clinics that are adopting RTM or RPM without understanding the difference often end up using tools that do not fully support either. Some vendors take an RPM platform and try to apply it to musculoskeletal care, but the data types, workflows, and even the billing permissions do not match. Others treat RTM as a simplified version of RPM and leave out key features that clinics need for compliance.

At Orva, we did not build an RPM platform and rebrand it. We built Orva from day one to support RTM—because that is what rehab, ortho, and MSK clinics actually need. The platform captures therapeutic activity, tracks patient engagement, and supports the exact documentation required for RTM billing. Our system is not a generic monitoring tool with new labels. It is a purpose-built solution that reflects the clinical and billing realities of the providers we serve.

If your clinic is treating patients with pain, injury, or post-surgical rehab needs, RTM is the pathway designed for your world. Knowing that—and choosing technology built around it—can mean the difference between a compliant, high-performing program and one that creates more problems than it solves.

Want to see how Orva helps you run RTM the right way? Schedule a demo and we’ll walk you through exactly how it works.