RTM Software for Orthopedic Surgery Practices (2026)

RTM software for an orthopedic surgery practice has to do more than a PT-clinic tool: it needs to track the 90-day global surgical period per patient so surgeons don't bill into bundled post-op time, treat non-operative patients as billable from day one, enforce the one-biller rule when the practice's own therapists are also monitoring a patient, and scale onboarding across multiple surgeons' panels rather than one clinician's caseload. Platforms commonly evaluated for this include BoneArc, Force Therapeutics, Limber Health, and CoachCare.

One honest note up front: we build BoneArc, so we have a stake in this comparison. Rather than hide that, this guide leads with the criteria — the same questions we'd tell a practice manager to put to us in a demo.

What's different for a surgery practice

Most "RTM software" content — including our own buyer's guide for PT practices — is written from the therapist's side: one clinician, one plan of care, one panel. An orthopedic surgery practice looks different. It runs post-operative patients whose surgeon generally can't separately bill RTM while they're inside the 90-day global surgical period, non-operative patients who can be billed from the first day of monitoring, and — if the practice has an embedded PT or sports-medicine arm — two different clinicians who could plausibly try to monitor the same patient. Software built only for a stand-alone PT clinic usually has no concept of any of that.

Five things ortho-surgery RTM software has to get right

1. Global-period awareness, per patient. The operating surgeon generally cannot bill RTM for a patient during the 90-day global surgical period — that monitoring is bundled into the surgical package. There's a real exception: a PT or PM&R provider furnishing RTM under their own therapy plan of care isn't bound by the surgeon's global period. The software needs to know which rule applies to which patient, not apply one blanket policy to the whole panel. See RTM & the 90-day global period for the full breakdown.

2. One platform, two panel types. A surgical practice's RTM census is rarely all post-op. Non-operative patients — knee osteoarthritis, low back pain, a rotator cuff managed conservatively — are billable under RTM from day one, with no global-period bundling to track. A tool that only models a post-surgical recovery timeline misses roughly half of a typical ortho panel.

3. The one-biller rule, enforced. When a surgery practice also employs or partners with PTs, more than one clinician could plausibly monitor the same patient. Medicare allows only one biller per patient per calendar month for RTM. Software that doesn't flag or lock this exposes the practice to a denied — or worse, clawed-back — claim.

4. Onboarding at surgical volume. A single orthopedic surgeon can generate a much larger monthly patient volume than a solo PT's caseload, and a practice may have several surgeons plus a PT staff. Referral-code generation, protocol assignment, and monthly certification all need to hold up at that scale — reviewed and certified per provider, rolled up per practice.

5. Outcomes tied to the procedure. Ortho practices track PROMs and, for joint replacement, implant-level outcomes by procedure type — a TKA cohort's KOOS trend matters differently than a rotator-cuff cohort's ASES trend. Software that only reports generic "adherence" misses what a surgeon actually wants to see on their panel.

Comparison at a glance

Vendor positioning summarized from public materials, as of this article's publication. Capabilities and pricing change — verify current specifics directly with each vendor. See our PT-focused vendor comparison for Medbridge and WebPT, which are more clinic-EMR-adjacent than surgery-practice-focused.

What it costs, against what it pays

Pricing models vary by vendor: per-active-patient per month, per-provider subscriptions, and enterprise contracts sized for larger surgical groups. Weigh cost against the revenue a compliant RTM month actually produces — roughly $146 or more per active patient per month when the device-supply code (98977) and the treatment-management codes (98980 plus 98981) stack, under the CY2026 Medicare fee schedule. That figure is uncapped because 98981 adds in further 20-minute increments. Run it against your own panel size and payer mix, not a vendor's example clinic — see the RTM revenue math for the full per-code breakdown.

Which one fits your practice

If your panel is a mix of post-op and non-operative patients, and especially if your practice includes its own PTs, prioritize per-patient global-period logic and one-biller enforcement over general MSK breadth — those are the two failure modes that cost a surgical practice real revenue or trigger a compliance problem. If you're part of a hospital-owned or large service-line group already running an episode-pathway platform, evaluate whether its RTM billing layer is as tightly gated as a purpose-built tool, or whether it was added on top of a broader care-pathway product.

Whatever you evaluate, ask for the same demo: one post-op patient still inside the global period, one non-operative patient, and one patient shared with an embedded PT — and watch whether the software gets each of the three right without you telling it to.

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