The core of treating an illness is keeping a continuous tab on the disease and its progression. It is essential to monitor the patient’s health regularly to help the care providers understand any slight change. Chronic care management as a tool helps connect providers and caretakers by tracking the key indicators of each condition and assisting the patients as well as the payer team in enabling CCM work.
This article provides complete information about Chronic Care Management (CCM), its advantages, and its role in medical health.
What are Hallmark indicators?
Hallmark indicators are key aspects assisting medical professionals in appropriate patient care management. These are key indicators that a clinician monitors periodically to track the progress or regression of disease. In addition, it helps physicians educate the care providers in understanding the points to be monitored to identify the issue.
Example: The critical hallmark indicators for patients with Alzheimer’s include deposits of hyperphosphorylated tau and the presence of amyloid protein in the brain regions.
Real-time tracking of key indicators helps the management of Chronic Illness
One of the primary aspects of healthcare is keeping track of the illness. While it is impossible for individuals to keep a trace of every indicator, the hallmarks assist providers in engaging with the patient to understand the underlying issue.
Real-time tracking is helpful in myriad ways. It not only limits the visits to ER but also reduces costs. These factors help physicians in adjusting the dosage of treatment methods frequently.
For patients with chronic illnesses such as CHF or Congestive Heart Failure, weight gain or loss is a scale to assess the condition. That is where real-time monitoring apps and tracking come into the picture. In the existing time with CCM apps, you only need to log the weight in the app or the phone and track it in real-time.
It has increased the need for more sophisticated devices that can accurately detect key hallmark indicators. For example, devices like the Apple Watch have features like atrial fibrillation detection as well as blood sugar. Gathering all these together helps care providers manage chronic illness before the patient gets sick.
What are chronic conditions that qualify for chronic care management?
Chronic Care Management (CCM) allows medicare beneficiaries with multiple chronic illnesses to monitor their condition. These services are essential components that help promote better health and reduce health care costs.
Chronic care management includes assisting patients who suffer from chronic conditions. These can be divided into two categories: those that qualify for non-complex chronic care and those that qualify for complex chronic care management.
Non-complex illness includes those that are for a short period. On the other hand, conditions that last for a year or more and need medical attention that lasts over a year, including those that can hinder your daily activities. Diabetes, mental health issues, and blood pressure qualify for chronic care management.
Conditions that qualify for Non-Complex Chronic Care Management
Non-complex chronic care conditions eventually resolve through surgery, therapy, or medication. These include:
- Viruses
- Bronchitis
- Injury
- Laryngitis
- Infections, etc.
Conditions that qualify for Complex Chronic Care Management
Complex chronic conditions include illnesses that are persistent and long-lasting. These constitute:
- Heart diseases
- COPD
- Asthma
- Osteoporosis
- Arthritis
- Cancer
- Diabetes, etc.
Coding and Billing for CCM
CCM codes are service codes employed for care coordination and management payment for patients with chronic health conditions. The Chronic Care Management service uses coding and billing to report the services, which are as follows:
Some of the common CCM Coding include:
- CPT 99487 is a complex CCM that includes 60 minutes of timed service offered by clinical staff to revise the comprehensive care plan. It includes implementing strategies that range from moderate to high complexity.
- CPT 99491 – These include CCM services offered by physicians for at least 30 minutes
- CPT 99489 – 30 minutes of additional staff time spent offering complex CCM by a physician or any other type of health care professional.
How Equipo helps you with Comprehensive Chronic Care Management
Equipo‘s Comprehensive Chronic Care Management keeps track of illnesses such as obesity, COPD, cholesterol, diabetes and symptom management. It allows the caretakers to monitor the symptoms closely and provide a detailed approach to navigate any complexities for thorough care. Equipo’s CCM provides features that include
- Security – Complete security of information added with a secured and cloud-based care management tool that is entirely centralized
- Identifying gaps – Its automated risk quantification helps track patients and identify the care gap.
- Accurate billing – Comprehensive care plans enable risk stratification of care gaps, analyzing cost ratios, and sharing alerts to care providers.
- Accurate patient health tracking – multi-source data integrations for longitudinal patient views such as Rx, EMRs, Claims, etc.
The Comprehensive CCM by Equipo is designed to assist in real-time monitoring and prioritizing of daily tasks along with helping clinical team members. It eliminates any inefficiency by care managers and tracks patient progress, participation, and better care management outcomes for risk patients. Schedule a demo today.
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