Medicare Telehealth services stopped amidst government shutdown
It just puts you in a kind of a a physical uh torper. People who normally attend doctor’s appointments online being forced to show up in person. I’m community reporter Carson Wells and I looked into how the government shutdown is impacting Medicare teleaalth users. As of October 1st, Medicare’s pandemic era teleaalth waiverss expired, which means recipients who have been able to receive medical care from home have to return to in-person appointments. It’s hard for him to walk and it’s hard for him to get out of the house. It was easier when I was able to call the doctor and have a conversation once a month or once every couple of weeks. Adam Sunnison drove from Oceaniano to see his doctor in person at the pain management specialist’s office in St. Louis Abyispo. He and many other patients were sitting in the waiting room and in the hallway waiting to be seen. One woman told me off camera that she was rescheduled for an in-person appointment after the office canled her teleaalth appointment on Saturday. I reached out to pain management specialists for comment but have not heard back. The doctor came in uh asked me if I was in any pain. I said yes. He said more than usual. And I said actually yes cuz after this experience. NBC News reports more than 6.7 million older adults got care through teleaalth services last year. Now that the waiverss expired, Dr. Renee Bravo with the California Medical Association tells me the rules will return to prepandemic ways. There still are mental health provisions there that allow people to to access that. But other things, you know, like like regular routine primary care, primary care, urgent care issues such as such as visits for for infections, uh hypertension, the things that usually those are now limited. Um you have to go back to to the office, so to speak. He says currently it’s a waiting game on reestablishing the waivers. The the the problem with the shutdown is is that many of these waiverss expired and we’re trying to get them reinstated uh with the spending bills that are coming up. And so it it’s it has affected that fairly significantly. In St. Louis, Abyispo, Carson Wells, KSBY News.
Medicare Telehealth services stopped amidst government shutdown
