By Jeff Sirabian, Director and Owner of Plymouth Physical Therapy Specialists, Plymouth, MI
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically and forever altered almost every aspect of our lives. With the virus still spreading rapidly across the much of the country, Americans are once again facing the prospect of lockdowns and severe disruptions to their health and economic wellbeing.
While the present circumstances are difficult for everyone, they threaten to exact a particularly miserable toll on Americans suffering from chronic and acute pain. As a physical therapy provider based in Plymouth, I am deeply concerned that many of our most vulnerable patients will be cut off from the physical therapy-guided pain-management treatments during the ongoing national emergency.
Fortunately, policymakers in Congress and across federal agencies, including Senator Debbie Stabenow, have fought hard to ensure those Americans who are immunocompromised, elderly, and suffering from pre-existing conditions can continue accessing the care they need through telehealth-based physical therapy services under the Medicare program. Virtual physical therapy is an indispensable lifeline of care that mitigates patient pain, ensures continuity of medically necessary treatment, and prevents hospitalizations and readmissions. It is great to see policymakers recognize this fact and act decisively to ensure Medicare payment for vital telehealth therapy services.
But, despite this enormous progress, another threat looms on the horizon — both for physical therapists and other specialty providers here in Michigan and across the country.
Before COVID-19 completely upended our economy and healthcare system, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Serves (CMS) — the agency responsible for overseeing the Medicare program — issued its Physician Fee Schedule final rule for 2020. Along with imposing an 8 percent reimbursement reduction for physical therapy services beginning in 2021, the rule would also decimate payment rates for a whole host of other specialty providers that seniors rely on.
Given the calamitous economic effects of COVID-19 on specialty and other outpatient care providers over the last few months, piling on with a reimbursement reduction at the end of the year would undermine our healthcare infrastructure during a national health emergency that experts predict will last well into 2021. This is an undoubtably dangerous prospect indeed. But, at a more basic level, imposing policies whose underlying assumptions were based off a pre- coronavirus view of our healthcare landscape must be logically reevaluated during this unprecedented crisis.
Recognizing the threats posed by the PFS final rule, concerned stakeholders across the country, including the American Medical Association, the Alliance for Physical Therapy Quality and Innovation, the American College of Radiology and others have asked leaders in both chambers
of Congress to undo — or, at the very least, delay — the cuts until we can better understand the impact of COVID-19 on specialty care providers and the vulnerable seniors they serve.
As with the expansion of payment for telehealth-based care for Medicare patients, policymakers must act decisively to ensure America’s specialty care providers and their patients are protected during the present pandemic — and beyond. I urge Michigan’s Congressional delegation to hear our voice and fight to include a waiver for budget neutrality requirements for the evaluation and management (E/M) payment increases within the next coronavirus relief package. Doing so would block pending Medicare cuts to therapists and protect vital healthcare providers across the country who, already beleaguered by COVID-19, need as much help as they can get. To ensure that we can continue serving America’s Medicare beneficiaries, please throw us a lifeline.
