When a patient is discharged, deactivate their RTM enrollment in SaRA so automated messages stop.
How to deactivate RTM for a patient
Open your patient list and find the patient.
Hover the patient's row and choose Update RTM Status from the row actions.
In the dialog, click Deactivate RTM.
Select a Reason for Unenrollment: Discharged, Deceased, Hospital, Non-Responsive, Opted Out, or Other (Other asks for a short note).
If your practice sends follow-up texts after discharge and you do not want this patient to receive them, tick Do not send follow-up texts after discharge in the same window.
Confirm. You'll see a confirmation that the patient was deactivated.
Switching RTM off for many patients at once
Use this when your practice stops RTM for a group of patients, for example everyone at one clinic, and wants to keep CCM and PCM.
Open your Patients page and stay on the Active tab.
Narrow the list to the patients you mean. To pick one clinic, open the provider and clinic picker next to the search box and choose All in [clinic name]. If your practice uses PCM, you can also add the RTM patients filter to show only patients with RTM on.
Tick the box at the left of each patient's row. The box in the header ticks every patient with RTM on on the current page. Patients without RTM have a greyed-out box, because there is nothing to switch off for them.
To include every page, click Select all [number] patients with RTM on in this view in the bar above the table. Select all works on up to 200 patients at a time. If more than 200 patients in the view have RTM on, narrow the list with the clinic picker or a filter first.
Click Deactivate RTM in the same bar.
A window titled Deactivate RTM? opens. It tells you what will happen before anything changes: how many patients lose RTM, how many stay on your Active list because they also have CCM or PCM, and how many have RTM only and move to Inactive.
Then, in that window:
Choose a Reason for Unenrollment. If you pick Other, add a short note under Details, such as “Office request”. The reason and note are saved on every patient in the batch.
Tick Do not send follow-up texts after discharge if these patients should not receive your practice's post-discharge follow-up texts.
Click Deactivate RTM for [number] patients. A large batch can take up to a minute, so keep the window open.
When it finishes, the window shows RTM deactivation finished and how many patients were switched off. If any could not be switched off, it lists them by name and keeps them selected so you can try again.
What changes for each patient is the same as switching them off one at a time.
Their RTM check-in texts stop. Some practices also send a short series of follow-up texts after discharge; to stop those for a patient, use Stop Follow-Up Texts (see below). You and the patient can still message each other.
CCM and PCM stay on. Patients with CCM or PCM stay on your Active list, and patients with RTM only move to Inactive.
RTM already earned stays billable. Lines from earlier months stay on your Billing page as usual. The RTM month in progress ends that day, and if the patient already answered on enough days, you will still be sent a billing justification for it.
You can re-activate any of these patients later from the Inactive tab or the row action Update RTM Status, the same as for one patient.
What happens after deactivation
Automated check-in texts to the patient stop.
If RTM was the patient's only program, they move to your Inactive list. Patients who also have CCM or PCM stay on your Active list.
If the patient already earned a monitoring code in the current cycle, you will still receive the billing justification for it. Unenrolling truncates the cycle; it does not erase what was already earned.
You and the patient can still message each other. Deactivating stops the automation, not the relationship. The line stays open in both directions.
You can re-activate the patient later if they return to care.
Stopping follow-up texts for a discharged patient
Some practices send a short series of follow-up texts after a patient is discharged. Whether your practice does is a setting your owner controls under Manage, then Notifications: Send follow-up texts after discharge. When it is off, none of the follow-up controls below appear, because there is nothing to stop. When it is on, you can still stop them for one patient:
Open your Patients page and click the Inactive tab.
Hover the patient's row and click Stop Follow-Up Texts, then confirm. A Follow-ups off label appears next to their name, showing who turned them off and when, and nothing more is sent.
To turn them back on, click Allow Follow-Up Texts on the same row. When you deactivate RTM, ticking Do not send follow-up texts after discharge in the Deactivate RTM window does both in one step. Keep the Deceased reason for patients who have died; it is not needed to stop follow-up texts.
When should I deactivate a patient?
At discharge: deactivate their RTM so automated texts stop.
Not just because they asked once: if a patient is steadily responding, it is usually best to keep them enrolled, unless they are adamantly asking to be removed.
If the volume is the problem rather than the program, switching the patient to the intro-only type is a lighter option: it stops the daily questions but keeps the line open, so they can still reach you.
For completeness, automated messages end in four ways: the patient's enrollment duration (length of care) expires, a provider deactivates them, a provider turns off follow-up texts for that patient, or the patient replies STOP.
Deactivate vs. STOP: they are not the same
A patient can reply STOP to any SaRA text to unsubscribe their number, but this is a full block in both directions. You will not be able to message them, and only the patient can reverse it by texting START. A patient who replied STOP is also considered inactive, so SaRA stops evaluating them for billable RTM events. Deactivating in SaRA is almost always the better option than telling a patient to reply STOP.
The primary provider gets an email notification when a patient replies STOP. If they did it by mistake, they can reply START and the line re-opens.
Bringing a patient back: the question that affects billing
Discharged patients messaging months later to restart care is normal and expected. When you re-activate someone, SaRA asks: "Is this a new plan of care?" Your answer changes what can be billed.
Answer | What happens | Use when |
No | Continues the existing episode. Does not re-trigger the setup code (98975). | Same episode: a pause, a break, or a brief unenrollment. |
Yes | Resets everything from zero, including setup-code eligibility. | Genuinely new episode: new injury, new body region, new evaluation. |
Answering Yes on a continuing plan of care bills the setup code twice in one episode, which is a compliance problem. Neither answer is safe by default; answer based on whether a new episode of care actually started. The full detail is in Re-activating a patient, and if you picked wrong we can correct it from our side without re-enrolling the patient.
One practical note: your inactive list grows over time, so use search to find someone rather than scrolling. The unread-message filter works there too, which is how you catch a discharged patient reaching back out.
If a deactivated patient still receives automated messages
Contact support right away through the in-app chat with the patient's name. This should not happen, and we can stop the messages from our side the same day.