BoneArc quietly accumulates the time you spend reviewing a patient’s chart. That review time and your call combine into the total that drives the RTM treatment-management thresholds — no stopwatch, no manual log.
RTM management time is one of the things that has to be documented for treatment-management billing — and it’s the piece providers most often forget to write down. BoneArc handles it for you: as you work in a patient’s chart, the portal passively accumulates your review time and adds it to the time from that patient’s call. You don’t start a timer or fill anything in.
There is nothing to turn on. The moment you open a patient’s chart, a live Review time badge appears in the header and begins counting. Everything on this page happens automatically in the background.
For the RTM treatment-management codes, BoneArc uses a single number it calls total management time. Per the CMS 2026 Final Rule as applied in BoneArc, that total is portal review time plus the call duration, combined:
The minutes you spend inside the patient’s chart reviewing their recovery data. Accrued passively while the chart is open and you’re actively working.
The length of the synchronous phone call you log for that patient. The call is a separate requirement, but its minutes also roll into the same total.
Add the two together and you get the total management time for the patient this period. That combined total — not review time alone — is what BoneArc measures against the treatment-management thresholds.
The review timer starts when you open the chart and counts while you’re actively working. Switch to another tab or window and it pauses; come back and it resumes. If the page sits untouched for about ten minutes, it pauses on its own until you interact again.
When it’s paused you’ll see the badge change to Idle — a clear signal that no minutes are accruing at that moment. Open the same patient in two tabs and only one timer runs, so the same minute is never counted twice.
Only whole minutes are recorded, and each recorded minute is tagged as system-recorded review time. You can watch the count on the badge, but you can’t edit it — it reflects real time on the chart.
On the patient’s chart, the Review time badge in the header ticks live in minutes and seconds while you work, and reads Idle when paused.
Lower on the same chart, the RTM summary shows Total RTM Time for the period — this is the combined review-plus-call total — alongside Days Logged and Call Logged.
Across your whole panel, open RTM Billing and the Patient Status tab. The Min column for each patient is that same total management time, so you can see at a glance who is close to a threshold.
Total management time is what moves a patient across the RTM treatment-management thresholds — the tiers behind CPT 98979, 98980, and 98981. Rather than make you count minutes, BoneArc measures your accumulated total against those thresholds and shows how close each patient is on the Patient Status tab.
The phone call is a separate requirement on top of the time: at least one synchronous interactive call must be documented per episode for these codes. Its duration also counts toward the total, but logging the call is its own step — the chart’s Call Logged indicator tells you whether it’s on file.
You work in the chart the way you already do — reviewing recovery data, checking milestones, following up. BoneArc turns that work into documented management time in the background, combines it with the call, and shows you exactly where each patient stands against the thresholds.
This guide is general educational information about how BoneArc tracks time. It is not billing or legal advice. Coding and coverage decisions are the provider’s responsibility; confirm current CMS requirements for your situation.
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