RTM CPT 98980 & 98981: Remote Therapeutic Monitoring Treatment Management

CPT 98980 covers the first 20 minutes per calendar month that a physician or qualified health care professional (or clinical staff under their direction) spends managing a patient enrolled in Remote Therapeutic Monitoring, provided at least one real-time interactive communication with the patient or caregiver occurs that month. CPT 98981 is the add-on code for each additional 20 minutes in the same month.

This page provides general educational information about CPT and RTM billing codes. It is not coding advice, a guarantee of reimbursement, or a substitute for your own compliance review. Payer coverage and documentation requirements vary by plan and can change — verify current requirements with CMS, your Medicare Administrative Contractor, and each payer before billing.

What 98980 and 98981 Cover

98980 and 98981 are the treatment management half of Remote Therapeutic Monitoring — separate from the device supply codes (98975–98978, and the CY2026 short-duration variants 98984–98986) that cover setup and the transmission of monitoring data. Where a device-supply code pays for the data collection and equipment side of RTM, 98980/98981 pay for the clinical work of reviewing that data, adjusting a treatment plan, and communicating with the patient about it.

98980 — First 20 minutes of RTM treatment management time in a calendar month.
98981 — Each additional 20 minutes in that same calendar month (add-on code; billed alongside 98980, never on its own).

A companion lower-threshold code, 98979, was added effective January 1, 2026 to cover 10–19 minutes of monthly management time — see that page for how it interacts with 98980. Only one treatment-management base code (98979 or 98980) may be billed per patient per calendar month; a practice cannot bill both for the same month.

The device-supply side of this workflow — including 98978, the code most relevant to cognitive-behavioral-therapy-style monitoring like concussion and mental-health symptom tracking — is covered separately on its own page.

Who Can Bill These Codes

98980/98981 may be billed by a physician or other qualified health care professional, or performed by clinical staff under their direction, consistent with general incident-to and supervision rules for the billing practitioner's scope of practice. RTM billing-practitioner eligibility remains statutorily limited: physicians, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists (and qualifying assistants under applicable supervision rules) are eligible; pharmacists and dietitians are not currently eligible to bill RTM codes.

When a physical therapist assistant (PTA) or occupational therapy assistant (OTA) furnishes more than a defined share of the service, the applicable CQ/CO assistant modifier rules continue to apply to these codes the same way they apply elsewhere in the RTM family.

Time and Unit Rules

98980 and 98981 are calendar-month, cumulative-time codes — not per-encounter codes:

Time is totaled across the calendar month, not per visit.
98980 requires the first 20 minutes to be met before it can be billed.
98981 is billed for each additional complete 20-minute increment beyond the first 20.
At least one real-time interactive communication with the patient or caregiver must occur during the month before either code is billed. CMS guidance clarifies this can be satisfied through audio-only calls and other live, bidirectional communication — it is not limited to audio-video visits. (One source also suggested expanded asynchronous-communication flexibility for 2026; that detail is less consistently corroborated and should be confirmed against the CMS final rule text before being relied on.)
Only one treatment-management base code (98979 or 98980) is billable per patient per month, regardless of how the 20-minute thresholds are approached.

Documentation Requirements

To support 98980/98981, documentation should generally establish:

The total qualifying time spent on treatment management for the month, with enough detail to show the 20-minute (or additional 20-minute) threshold was met.
That at least one real-time interactive communication with the patient or caregiver occurred during the billed month, including the date and mode of that communication.
What the clinical staff or QHP actually did with the monitoring data — review of RTM data, assessment of patient status or response, and any adjustment to the treatment plan.
That the service relates to monitoring a musculoskeletal, respiratory, or cognitive-behavioral-therapy condition under an active treatment plan, consistent with the general RTM framework.
Identification of the billing practitioner and, where applicable, the supervising physician/QHP for staff time counted toward the code.

Common Denial Reasons

No documented real-time interactive communication with the patient or caregiver during the billed month.
Total time documentation that doesn't clearly support the 20-minute (98980) or additional 20-minute (98981) threshold — no start/stop times, no running monthly total.
98981 billed without 98980 on the same claim, or billed for a month where the additional 20-minute increment wasn't actually completed.
Billing both 98979 and 98980 for the same patient in the same calendar month.
Treatment-management time billed with no corresponding device-supply code (98975–98978 or the 2026 short-duration equivalents) showing the monitoring relationship, or vice versa.
Billing by a practitioner type not currently eligible for RTM.

Worked Example

A sports-medicine physician has a patient in active post-concussion monitoring. Over the course of a calendar month, clinical staff under the physician's direction review the patient's weekly symptom-scale and mood-screen submissions, and the physician has one telephone check-in with the patient to discuss worsening headache scores and adjust the return-to-play timeline. Total qualifying management time for the month, combining data review and the interactive call, is documented at 24 minutes. The practice bills 98980 for the first 20 minutes; because the additional time did not reach a full second 20-minute increment, 98981 is not billed that month. The device-supply code covering the underlying data transmission (see 98978) is billed separately based on the number of days of data received.

Related and Adjacent Codes

RTM 98975 — initial RTM setup and patient education, billed once per episode.
RTM 98978 — device supply for cognitive-behavioral-therapy monitoring, the device-side counterpart to this treatment-management code.
RTM 98979 — the lower-threshold (10–19 minute) treatment-management code added for 2026.
CPT 96132 / 96133 — neuropsychological test evaluation, a distinct in-person/one-time evaluation service rather than monthly monitoring management.
CY2026 Final Rule Changes — a fuller walkthrough of the new short-duration RTM codes and what changed for 2026.

How Kavera Handles This

Treatment-management time accrues in Kavera as it happens: dashboard review, plan changes, patient calls and telehealth sessions. The monthly view shows minutes per patient, the interactive-communication requirement, and whether the month qualifies for 98980 alone or 98980 plus 98981. On Managed, Juliet Mott's team logs its time under your supervision and prepares the claim for your approval. Educational, not coding advice. Verify requirements with CMS, your MAC and each payer.

FAQ

Can 98980 and 98981 be billed for a telehealth-only relationship with no in-person visit?

RTM treatment management is generally tied to an active treatment plan established through the patient relationship rather than requiring a specific in-person encounter each month, but the underlying plan of care and practitioner eligibility rules still apply. Confirm current requirements with your payer and the CMS RTM guidance (opens in a new tab) before billing.

Does the "real-time interactive communication" have to be a video visit?

No. CMS guidance indicates this requirement can be met through audio-only calls and other live, bidirectional communication, not only audio-video encounters.

Can a practice bill 98980 and 98979 in the same month for the same patient?

No. Only one treatment-management base code — either 98979 (10–19 minutes) or 98980 (20+ minutes) — is billable per patient per calendar month.

Who can perform the time counted toward 98980/98981?

Clinical staff can perform monitoring and management work under the direction of an eligible billing physician or QHP, consistent with incident-to and supervision rules; the billing practitioner must fall within RTM's eligible practitioner types.

Does 98980/98981 require a specific number of days of monitoring data, like the device-supply codes do?

No. The day-count thresholds (for example, 16–30 days) apply to the device-supply codes such as 98978, not to the treatment-management codes, which are based on cumulative monthly time and at least one interactive communication.