American Academy of Pediatrics issued the following announcement on March 18.
America’s frontline physicians issued a series of recommendations about steps that should be taken to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
Our organizations represent more than 600,000 physicians and medical students serving on the front lines of health care. As the nation’s frontline physicians, our members will be diagnosing, testing, treating and counseling millions of patients and their families as the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, spreads throughout the United States and worldwide. They treat patients in rural, urban, wealthy and low-income communities, and are the foundation of the American health care system.
During this unprecedented national emergency, our organizations are committed to doing everything possible to prevent and slow the spread of the virus while ensuring that our patients get the care they need. However, they can’t do it alone; there are specific actions that federal and state governments can take now to support access and coverage for COVID-19 treatment and prevention.
Our recommendations include specific steps that the administration, Congress and states can take to facilitate Medicaid and CHIP coverage, particularly to low-income and at-risk patients; to create a special enrollment period in marketplace plans; to ensure coverage for virtual visits, including phone calls; to ramp up health care capacity, including hospital disaster planning, testing, and supply of masks, protective equipment, and other pharmaceutical and medical supplies; and to support frontline physicians and their practices in providing the best possible care to patients.
Our organizations believe that these additional measures, combined with the actions already being taken by the administration, Congress, and the states, will go a long way to supporting our frontline physicians by breaking down the barriers to testing, diagnosing, treating and counseling the growing number of Americans at risk from COVID-19.
Original source can be found here.
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