ROCKVILLE, Md. – Zyter, a leading digital health and IoT-enablement platform, announced on Tuesday that Reflections Healthcare, a provider practice in Pahrump, Nev., has implemented ZyterHome remote patient monitoring (RPM) to provide monitoring of chronic conditions at home for Medicare patients and others. Owned by Dr. William V. Craig, Reflections Healthcare has enrolled more than 100 patients to date in ZyterHome since its implementation in March 2021.

ZyterHome is a comprehensive, HIPAA-compliant RPM product enabling provider practices to monitor patient healthcare data between office visits, while patients manage their chronic conditions at home. Integrated with the ZyterHealth™ platform, ZyterHome consists of patient-facing, preconfigured LTE-enabled devices (blood pressure cuff, blood glucose monitor, and digital weight scale) to seamlessly track and transmit a patient’s physiological data to the physician’s office.

All of Reflection Healthcare’s enrolled ZyterHome patients are using the weight scale and blood pressure monitoring devices, while approximately 40% are using the glucose monitoring device.  The ZyterHome weight scale device is being used not only by Medicare-age patients, but also by some 15-20 year old patients who struggle with obesity.

“Our ZyterHome patients, including those with coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, and emphysema, are doing very well with weight and blood pressure management,” said Dr. Craig. “Also, blood glucose monitoring with ZyterHome benefits not only diabetic patients, but also persons with hypoglycemia and other conditions affected by blood glucose levels.”

“Reflections Healthcare is transforming patient care with ZyterHome in multiple ways,” said Sanjay Govil, founder and CEO of Zyter, Inc. “Remote patient monitoring gives their Medicare-age and other high risk patients peace of mind that they can receive quality care for chronic conditions at home just as they would at the office, while the practice itself benefits from opportunities to expand services to new patients.”

Physicians receive alerts and notifications on the ZyterHome dashboard when abnormal patient data values, such as a spike in blood pressure, are transmitted from the patient’s device.  Dr. Craig and his medical staff can intervene quickly and prevent an emergent situation that may require an ER visit or hospitalization. “When we get an alert on the ZyterHome dashboard that a patient with congestive heart failure has gained 3 pounds in a day or 5 pounds in a week, I can initiate a virtual visit from the dashboard with the patient to find out the cause,” Dr. Craig said. “Intervening early reduces the patient’s suffering, improves the outcome, and reduces overall medical costs for the insurance provider.”

Improved Practice Efficiencies and Growth

Since using ZyterHome, Reflections Healthcare has been able to free up appointment times so that the practice can accept more new patients. Before implementing ZyterHome, 5% of Reflections Healthcare’s Medicare patients comprised over 15% of office visits. “We’re finding that the Medicare patients using ZyterHome are scheduling fewer office visits and require fewer urgent care visits and hospitalizations,” said Dr. Craig. “At-home monitoring with ZyterHome is cheaper for everyone in terms of time, money, and personal investment – beyond the benefits of RPM suggested by the literature.”

ZyterHome also assists the billing workflow by logging every 20-minute increment spent viewing RPM data and providing a monthly total. According to the 2021 guidelines for the Center for Medicare Services Remote Physiological Monitoring Program, Medicare will reimburse providers for clinical time providing care using RPM.

“Of course, our primary goal is to provide quality care for our patients, but expanding financially is also a great benefit,” said Dr. Craig. “After the second billing cycle, our practice received 100% reimbursement for providing care using ZyterHome for RPM.”

ZyterHome can be implemented in just a few hours and can scale up rapidly to any size patient population. A pre-configured LTE-enabled medical device is shipped to the patient’s home after the patient signs a consent form. ZyterHome devices are easy for patients of all ages to use. The patient just turns on the ZyterHome device and follows simple instructions in the user guide. Zyter also provides user support.