The Society Continues to Advocate for Nursing Home Clinicians

Last week the Society continued efforts to advocate for post-acute and long-term care (PALTC) clinicians. The Society joined other national and state medical societies to encourage lawmakers to include in the final “stimulus” legislation provisions to help physicians provide the best possible care for their patients. Specifically, the groups called on Congress to support and sustain physicians and their practices during this unprecedented national emergency through tax relief, no-interest loans, direct payments, payment for virtual visits including phone calls, and other measures.

The groups are strongly urging Congress to take all possible action to ensure that every physician and health care worker has access to critically needed personal protective equipment (PPE). “The lack of such supplies is placing both physicians and patients at great risk of acquiring COVID-19 and spreading it to others.”

Currently, telehealth visits in nursing homes are still limited to once every 30 days under Medicare. The Society has been advocating for years trying to get this restriction lifted. In a recent letter to regulators the Society notes that, “PALTC-based clinicians are a high-risk group of necessary staff that could transmit the (COVID-19) virus from facility to facility since an average clinician goes to multiple facilities.” The Society is urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Congress to lift this restriction so our members can still safely see patients without further risking themselves, the patients, and the entire facility. as the letter also noted, “Require all payers, including ERISA plans, to provide coverage and payment for audio-only telehealth visits with patients, at the same level as in-person visits.”

Click here to read the entire letter.

For COVID-19 updates please visit the Society’s COVID-19 resource page.