CAREMINDr introduces a $100,000 'Jump $tart' Program to Help Financially Strapped Primary Care Doctors

LOS GATOS, Calif., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CAREMINDr Corporation delivers mobile-enabled remote patient monitoring (RPM) solutions that give doctors the ability to check in on patients in between face-to-face visits. Today the company announced that, due to the staggering economic crisis facing primary care doctors, it will award start-up grants of $5,000 to $10,000 to selected independent medical practices. This Jump $tart program enables solo/small practice doctors to launch RPM and generate new ongoing revenue.

CAREMINDr is awarding $100,000 total in the pilot round of Jump $tart, with follow-on rounds planned throughout the coming months. Recipients will receive training and immediate implementation of CAREMINDr's turn-key RPM platform for managing chronic and other at-risk conditions. Jump $tart will also include CAREMINDr's RPM Connect program that provides technical and administrative support to the medical practices, so doctors and staff can focus on providing care and guidance to their patients.

Jump $tart is CAREMINDr's way of assisting a critical healthcare community that has suffered significant financial losses due to decreased patient activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. A recent study estimates that primary care practices during 2020 will lose $67,774 in gross revenue per physician, or more than $15 billion nationwide.

"Small independent practices are being overlooked in the nation's COVID-19 economic response plan, which means they could go out of business, creating healthcare deserts across the United States," said Harry Soza, CEO of CAREMINDr. "Jump $tart will show that, with a small initial investment, it is possible to give independent physicians the boost they need to gain leading-edge care management technology and generate significant ongoing revenue from the CPT codes for chronic care management and remote physiologic monitoring. In less than a week, we can get practices started with a financial lifeline that will sustain them in this new era of technology-driven care. And equally important, our data shows that RPM improves care, adherence, and satisfaction for at-risk patients."

The Jump $tart recipients will be selected based on a short phone interview. Interested practices can sign up for consideration at CAREMINDr.com/RPM. After filling in contact information, there's a final box where physicians can indicate interest in Jump $tart.

CAREMINDr will review each application and select Jump $tart practices based on a 20-minute phone interview with one of the company's Regional VPs, who will continually interact with participating practices to ensure that their RPM program succeeds. The topics to be discussed, and the basic criteria for selection, will be emailed to each interested practice prior to the interview. Initial awards will be identified and granted by early August.

"Jump $tart will focus on practices that have financial need, coupled with an enthusiasm for growing a robust RPM program," Soza said. "Essentially, our RPM Connect service will become their partner, to support and assist them as they focus on providing care. This approach can keep a doctor's patients as healthy as possible, while generating a new, ongoing revenue stream to regain financial stability. We are putting our money on the line because we know this can be achieved."

Eliminating Administrative and Technical Burden
RPM Connect is CAREMINDr's turn-key program that offers physicians an off-site administrative and technical support team to help them operate their own programs. The technology platform uses CAREMINDR's mobile app, which was launched in 2018 and is used by practices across the country to optimize remote care management. Data collected via the app includes readings from home devices, such as thermometers and blood pressure cuffs, as well as patient responses to clinically validated survey questions about their conditions and relevant health concerns.

The RPM Connect Centers assemble this clinically relevant and actionable information from patients into CAREMINDr REVIEWER, an online workflow portal used by the doctor's office.  Non-normal responses from patients are clearly flagged for immediate follow up. In addition, if an RPM patient stops reporting in, an RPM Connect Service Manager will quickly notify the practice to help address the situation.

A mobile-enabled RPM program can generate an estimated $60 to $120 per month for each patient monitored. If a practice monitors 200 patients on an ongoing basis, that translates into $12,000 to $24,000 in reimbursements each month to sustain practices during COVID-19—and beyond.

One practice that utilizes CAREMINDr's RPM solution is Reliance Medical Group, a 23-location multispecialty primary care practice in the Atlantic City, NJ, area. Just months before COVID-19 began to spread in the United States, Reliance established a Virtual Office that has served as an R&D site for the RPM Connect centers. Reliance's Virtual Office, which has grown from 1 to 12 clinicians in less than a year, manages the RPM of hundreds of patients using CAREMINDr's programs for hypertension, diabetes, and most recently, COVID-19 monitoring of cases that do not yet require hospitalization.

"We hear a lot about how restaurants and hospitals are in trouble due to the pandemic, but your local primary care doctor is suffering, too," said Jon Regis, MD, CEO/President of Reliance Medical Group. "If that physician is not associated with a larger group practice like ours, they are probably facing significant hardship, especially in rural areas. Without other ways of generating revenue outside of an office visit, I feel that independent primary care as we know it will not survive."

Through Jump $tart and RPM Connect, CAREMINDr enables smaller independent practices to get started immediately, including adding dedicated RPM medical staff, so they can quickly enroll patients and focus on patient care instead of the administrative and technology aspects of RPM. In addition to supporting the flow of patient-generated activity, CAREMINDr can even help practices order home medical devices for new patients through already-established volume purchase arrangements with medical device distributors and vendors.

"Given the financial hardship many practices are facing, we want to do everything possible to help them get started with remote patient monitoring, because it can be an important way for physicians to be successful now, and after the pandemic is over," Soza said. "Whether it is through Jump $tart, the use of RPM Connect, or access to financial assistance, we are eager to support physicians in taking that first big step into RPM to elevate their practices to the technology standards of today's care."

Regis agreed: "A virtual office concept and remote monitoring are the future of primary care. Due to broadband limitations in rural areas, I do not believe telehealth alone will be enough to sustain these practices; they need to add RPM services. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and private  payers are already on board. Eventually, RPM with a virtual office concept will be the standard for how primary practices operate. It is truly amazing."

Practices of any size that are interested in learning more about how CAREMINDr's RPM services might work for them can sign up to receive information at www.CAREMINDr.com/RPM.

About CAREMINDr
CAREMINDr is a health IT company based in Silicon Valley that provides mobile-enabled remote patient monitoring (mRPM) solutions that give physicians the ability to check in on patients in between face-to-face visits. In turn, patients conveniently and efficiently report biometric, objective and subjective data on their health status and social determinants on a condition-dependent, clinically relevant schedule. This establishes an Accountable Dialogue with their Doctors that nurtures trust and engagement. The mRPM approach enables physicians, health systems and payers to reduce emergency department visits and hospital admissions while improving care plan adherence, outcomes, financial performance, and patient satisfaction.

Media Contact:
Tara Stultz
Amendola Communications for CAREMINDr
440.225.9595
[email protected]

SOURCE CAREMINDr