
Ohio Academy of Family Physicians members can use the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) SpeakOut system to communicate their support for House Bill 580, a bill that would require telemedicine payment parity. In addition, the message outlines the urgent financial circumstances family physician practices face and the need for members of the Ohio General Assembly to bolster the primary care infrastructure by infusing cash into the system to secure the economic viability of these practices.
SpeakOut is quick and easy to use. A pre-written message (below) can be used and edited. Act now.
As a family physician from your district, I implore you to act now as the COVID-19 emergency has thrown the primary care infrastructure into an existential crisis (particularly impacted are those not aligned with large health care institutions). Many primary care physician practices in this state will close within the next 2 to 6 weeks if cash isn’t infused into the primary care system.
Primary care physicians are keeping patients out of hospital emergency departments and are doing so with limited protective equipment and other supplies. Yet family physicians are seeing steep dips in office visits as they are forced to cancel preventive care visits and conduct COVID-19 triage and chronic care management via telemedicine. The cancellation of in-person visits and the conversion of most patient encounters to telemedicine have created a dangerous cash flow issue for practices to the extent that the economic viability of practices is severely threatened. Payers reimburse for telemedicine services at a reduced rate assuming they reimburse at all.
- Create payment parity between in-person and telemedicine visits
- Ensure that telephone/audio visits without a visual component are reimbursed equally with virtual visits with a visual component (many elderly patients do not have access to anything but a phone)
- Allow physicians and other primary care professionals to use multiple platforms for telehealth (not just the health plan’s platform or the platform the payer is pushing)
- Alleviate telemedicine reimbursement delays as delays result in major cash flow issues for primary care practices.
Please understand the importance of bolstering this state’s primary care infrastructure. If you don’t act now, the infrastructure may no longer exist to be bolstered.