The industry impact of the American Medical Association’s Digital Medicine Payment Advisory Group (DMPAG)

Digital medicine interventions are currently transforming health care and have created new efficiencies in the delivery process. The business model along with physician payment models are crucial drivers for the adoption of innovations. In the U.S., physician payment is mostly codified in the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT). Until recently, CPT codes related to digital medicine activities were mainly limited to telephone services. To embrace the evolving implementation of the various modalities of digital medicine, the American Medical Association (AMA) determined that a more comprehensive codeset is needed. Thus, the Digital Medicine Payment Advisory Group (DMPAG) was initiated in late 2016. Since then, the DMPAG has achieved a significant and measurable impact on digital medicine intervention adoption by introducing CPT codes for remote physiologic monitoring, remote therapeutic monitoring, artificial intelligence, and other digital innovations.