If telemedicine reimbursement returns to pre-pandemic levels, 4 in 10 primary care providers may lose the wherewithal to offer virtual patient visits.
What’s more, such a reversal could further demoralize a medical specialty that has arguably carried more than its own weight during the public health crisis while also bearing the brunt of COVID-19’s hit to the U.S. healthcare economy.
At least, that’s how some primary care thought leaders see it.
“With no cash infusion and without regard to future payment concerns, primary care tended to the health needs of the nation during the pandemic and continues to do so,” says Rebecca Etz, PhD, a professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Quoted in a news release sent this week by the Primary Care Collaborative, Etz, co-founder and -director of the Larry A. Green Center for the Advancement of Primary Health Care for the Public Good, continues:
Despite poor resources, a shrinking workforce and the growing complexity of health burdens of patients, primary care expanded its services to provide the safety net so many were lacking. When will this nation—and its leaders—wake up to the fact that primary care is key to getting us out of this prolonged pandemic?”
In the release, the D.C.-based Primary Care Collaborative cites findings from a survey it conducted in mid-August that drew responses from 1,263 primary care clinicians in 49 states, the nation’s capital and two U.S. territories.
Among the salient survey results:
- 71% of respondents say patient visits have been more complex and taken more time during the pandemic.
- 64% say telemedicine has been a key way to maintain patients’ access to care.
- 54% have been unable to hire staff for open positions in their practice.
- 45% personally know primary care clinicians who retired early or left practice because of the pandemic.
Additionally, 52% needed two to three labor-intensive conversations to change the minds of vaccine-hesitant patients.
More troubling, 67% found that the patients most steeled against vaccination based their perspective on “a gut or political opinion that cannot be changed.”
That’s not to say primary care didn’t meet with success in administering COVID vaccines.
Some 59% had patients ask for a vaccine booster, 34% reported patients requesting the vaccine because of fear of the delta variant, and 51% received an adequate supply of vaccines for their patients.
However, less than a third, 31%, said vaccinating patients was “common in their practice—part of routine care.”
Ann Greiner, president and CEO of the Primary Care Collaborative, says the group, together with the Larry A. Green Center, is
calling upon public and private payers to step up to help meet patients’ needs and safeguard the primary care workforce. Left with the most difficult-to-vaccinate portion of the population, primary care clinicians must be adequately supported for the multiple conversations that are needed to counter vaccine hesitancy and help meet our country’s vaccine goals.”
Click here for the news release and here for more on the survey.
The 2021 survey follows up on a similar project conducted by these groups last summer. The 2020 findings included 80% “highest ever” burnout rates observed among PCPs. The same percentage said they lacked the resources needed to cope with COVID-related stress, and 65% reported effects of the stress were evident in their own families.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.