Society Advocates for Expansion of SNF Telehealth

Last week the Society continued to push for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to lift the once a month restrictions on telehealth visits in nursing facilities. The Society continues to tell CMS that our clinicians are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and are a high-risk group of necessary staff that could transmit the virus from facility to facility since the average clinician visits multiple facilities. “By lifting telehealth restrictions on nursing facilities, it will greatly help to reduce this risk of transmission by clinicians and enable safe social distancing while still providing care to residents,” the Society stated.

The Society further stated that they are requesting, “CMS immediately lift the restriction during this pandemic. Enforcing this monthly restriction will put lives at risk and it is important for clinicians to reduce unnecessary exposures and limit the number of times that they come into contact with any COVID-19 cases and/or the buildings in which these cases are occurring.”

The Society will continue to push the administration to lift this restriction and has been working with other physician organization to garner support for this effort.

For current information on telehealth and COVID-19 please visit our website.

To read the Society’s letter to CMS, click here.