CCM & RPM

Chronic Care Management (CCM)

One of the keys to successfully managing a chronic condition is focusing on self-care and ensuring that your personal behavior effectively manages your health. CCM supports the patient’s self-care and provides the background support needed to ensure that the patient can adequately care for themselves. This is important because those who play a more active role in their healthcare typically have better health outcomes.

Chronic care management is available for Medicare beneficiaries with two or more chronic conditions that:

  • are expected to last at least a year or for the remainder of the patient’s life, or place the patient at significant risk of death, functional decline, or acute

  • exacerbation/decompensation.

Those with CCM will have a care manager and staff who will:

  • coordinate care by communicating between the patient and clinician (through the phone or electronically)

  • create and revise care plans

  • manage medication

  • be available 24/7 for patients, physicians, and other clinical staff

The benefits of CCM and creating a solid care management plan include:

  • reduced pain

  • less stress

  • increased mobility and physical fitness

  • better sleep

  • greater relaxation

  • a return to activities previously prevented by their chronic condition

Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)

Remote patient monitoring has similar goals to CCM, helping ensure adequate care for patients. However, while CCM is only intended for those with one or more chronic conditions, RPM is applicable for those with one or more chronic conditions as well as those who need acute care, neonatal, or any other type of care.

RPM utilizes equipment that allows the care manager and doctors to evaluate the patient’s physiological conditions. The equipment can also contain programmable alerts transmission, allowing care managers and medical practitioners to be alerted of a problem the instant it occurs.

Some of the information gathered with RPM includes:

  • weight

  • blood pressure

  • blood glucose level

  • body temperature

  • blood oxygen level

While CCM includes a care plan to improve self-care and management of chronic conditions, RPM solely focuses on receiving and interpreting data and interacting with the patient.

When comparing the two, it helps to think of RPM as a tool and CCM as a program to follow, but CCM can utilize RPM to provide better care.