RTM in 2026: 3 Decisions Every Practice Should Make
Part 2 of the RTM Implementation Playbook Series
Maybe you’ve never seriously considered RTM because you didn’t know where to start. Maybe you tried it once, and it quietly fell apart because your therapists didn’t have the bandwidth to keep it up. Or maybe you’re running an RTM program right now, but adoption from patients or staff isn’t where you want it to be.
Wherever you are in your RTM journey, you’re not behind. We’re still in the early adoption phase, and practices are at every stage of figuring it all out.
Knowing RTM exists and understanding its benefits get you halfway there. The rest comes down to execution. You need a staffing model that holds up in the day-to-day of a busy clinic. You need technology that fits your workflows. And you need your team to actually buy in.
That’s exactly what we dug into with Ben Barron, SVP of Sales at Limber Health, Rick Gawenda, Founder & President of Gawenda Seminars & Consulting, and Craig Brasington, VP of Revenue at Stride, during the second half of our recent webinar.
There’s a lot that goes into building an RTM program that actually works. Before you implement (or re-implement), make sure you’ve nailed down these three decisions for your practice.
This is Part 2 of a three-part series. Missed Part 1, where we covered why RTM matters and what’s changed for 2026? Start there→ In Part 3, we’ll answer any lingering RTM questions you may still have.
1. Pick Your RTM Model
Before anything else, decide on your staffing model. There are three main ways to go about it:
- Model 1: Each therapist is responsible for the RTM management of their own patients.
- Model 2: Hire a dedicated therapist who is responsible for RTM services for all patients.
- Model 3: Contract with an RTM company, utilizing their employees to provide support under the direction of the in-clinic therapist.
The right model depends on your practice—your caseload, your staffing, and how much bandwidth your team realistically has.
Model 1 puts a lot on your therapists’ plates. If they’re already seeing a full caseload, RTM is likely the first thing to slip when things get busy, and burnout isn’t far behind.
Model 2 is a step in the right direction, but it’s fragile. One vacation, one unexpected absence, one therapist you have to pull into patient care, and your RTM coverage stalls.
That’s why Model 3 tends to work best. A contracted RTM vendor brings dedicated staff whose entire focus is on keeping your patients engaged. Your patients get consistent support, your team isn’t stretched thin, and because the vendor only gets paid when you do, they’re motivated to keep the program running well.
2. Choose the Right Technology Partner
Once you have the right model in place, your technology has to work with it.
“It's not just the nuts and bolts of RTM that the technology company needs to understand,” Brasington explained. “A proper technology is built based on the workflows that are actually happening within a clinic.”
That means enrollment should feel like a natural part of your initial eval, not a separate process your front desk has to remember.
It means your therapists can see exactly where each patient stands without having to hunt for it, and the patients’ experience is engaging enough to keep them coming back to the app.
It means your EMR and RTM platform talk to each other, so nothing falls through the cracks and no one’s doing double data entry.
And it means billing should be easy, rather than a tedious task someone has to chase down at the end of the month.
So, when you’re evaluating RTM technology, look for:
- A partner who understands the full RTM workflow;
- Frictionless enrollment that fits inside your existing EMR process;
- Real-time visibility for both patients and providers;
- Tight EMR integration that eliminates duplicate data entry and extra clicks; and
- Reporting that tracks enrollment rates, patient engagement, adherence, and reimbursement performance—so you always know where your program stands.
Then, you’re ready for the hardest part: getting your team to actually embrace it.
3. Decide How You'll Get Buy-In
Before you start running with RTM, determine your “why,” and make sure your whole team knows it too.
“We chose this profession because we wanted to help people. We felt as if we could have an impact upon people's lives through therapy,” Barron said. “That is the ‘why’ of our staff.”
And that’s why the way you present RTM to your team makes a huge difference in adoption.
Asking your therapists to adopt RTM as a way for the practice to make more money is a hard sell, because they didn’t get into PT to make money. They want to help people. So, asking them to adopt RTM because it helps their patients get better faster, lands a lot better.
The same goes for patients. They need to understand what RTM is and why their participation is worth it.
When you can say that patients will have lower pain levels more quickly and be more engaged in their care with RTM, patients and therapists alike will buy in.
“Because they're all there to help people get better,” Barron emphasized. “And if you're able to empower them with a tool that's going to help them get their patients better, faster… why wouldn't they sign up for this?”
Once the “why” is clear, the other thing that will make or break your program is friction.
If your technology is hard to use, therapists won’t use it. If the patient-facing experience isn’t engaging, patients won’t use it either. And without both sides showing up, the clinical outcomes—and the revenue—won’t materialize.
“Make sure that you're considering [technology] from the perspective and the lens of your therapist, but just as much so the perspective and lens of your patients,” said Barron.
Because getting your therapists to enroll their patients in RTM and continue monitoring them, and then their patients actually participating in it, are equally important to the success and outcomes of your RTM program.
The Time to Start Is Now
If you’ve been waiting for the right time to get serious about RTM, 2026 is it. The code set is growing, and the outcome data is only getting stronger.
What separates practices that build sustainable RTM programs from those that never get off the ground comes down to the right staffing model, technology that actually fits your workflow, and a team that understands why they’re doing it.
Get those three things right, and the revenue follows.
Still have questions? In Part 3 of this series, we’re answering the questions viewers asked live during the webinar’s Q&A, plus the ones we didn’t get to. Stay tuned.
