You CAN Teach Old Dogs New Tricks
I’ve heard the saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” my whole life, and I really don’t know if it’s true. I haven’t tried to teach an old dog any new tricks, but I assume it references the belief that as a dog gets old, it gets set in its ways and resists change or learning new things. I certainly don’t want to suggest that we are old dogs, but it is very evident to me that as I get older, I want things to remain constant, and it is difficult to learn all the new gizmos that are now available. We’ve all asked our kids or our grandkids to help us with our cell phones or with our TVs. There is, however, another saying that applies here, “necessity is the mother of invention”.
The COVID pandemic isolated us from our families and kept us from our doctors, which was a necessity that required us to reinvent ourselves and learn new ways to communicate with our loved ones and our doctors (I’ll use doctors here, but it means all of our healthcare providers). We suddenly became acquainted with Zoom and began texting much more than before. We learned how to download pictures and movies and even how to take pictures and movies ourselves. We learned how to use Venmo to pay for things, so we didn’t have to touch money. We began getting groceries and DoorDash food delivered. But probably the most important thing that came out of the pandemic was using telehealth to communicate with our doctors.
Our government recognized that using telehealth was an important ingredient in keeping people, especially older and more vulnerable seniors, healthy during the pandemic. They instituted Public Health Emergency waivers that allowed Medicare to pay doctors when they used electronic methods to analyze and treat seniors. I know that I’m usually pretty harsh when I talk about how our government operates, but I won’t hesitate to proclaim that our government made a great decision when it came to telehealth for a number of reasons.
If there is something that motivates older people, it’s their family. When you tell me I can’t go visit my family, you can bet I’ll find some way to talk to and see them. No government decree could force me to learn how to use Zoom, but a pandemic did the trick. Almost overnight our healthcare providers found they had seniors who could use many ways to electronically communicate with their doctors. By paying the doctors for telehealth services, our government took advantage of these new skills that seniors had acquired.
It wasn’t just seniors who acquired new skills; doctors also learned new things. They learned how to communicate, diagnose, and prescribe without physically seeing the patient. They also learned the important skill of deciding which patients could be treated via telehealth and which needed to be seen in person. Again, these skills would have taken much longer if they weren’t required by the pandemic.
We had a chance during this time to experience the savings that could result from using telehealth, both for Medicare and the patient. Healthcare costs dropped, mostly because we postponed preventive and non-serious visits and procedures. But there is no doubt that there are savings available when we don’t visit a doctor’s office, and there are certainly savings when we don’t have to drive there or have a caregiver take off work to take us. This has especially been a boon for rural patients who found they had access to their doctors and other services that were unavailable prior to the waivers. These savings should not be ignored.
There are long-term benefits to continuing the expanded use of telehealth. We are making great strides in keeping people out of the hospital by using in-house patient monitoring. I’ve seen the advancement possible in this arena at the Computer Electronic Show this last January in Las Vegas. Many of the expensive and time-consuming tests that could only be done in the hospital or the doctor’s office are moving to the home, with the benefit of real-time monitoring. The expansion of the use of telehealth during the pandemic encouraged seniors to install the high-speed internet needed for telehealth services which would also be needed for the remote tests and monitoring devices. We need telehealth legislation to be passed as a step toward authorizing and paying for these time and money-saving inventions.
The question now is . . . how do we continue to reap the benefits of these newfound skills in the use of telehealth? The waivers that authorized the use and payment for telehealth services expire at the end of the year. There has been legislation submitted, H.R. 7623 – The Telehealth Modernization Act, that would extend these waivers and continue these efficient and beneficial services. It is a bi-partisan bill, that is a rarity in these polarized political times, but it faces the problem of being drowned out by the campaigning rhetoric in the fall. It would be a shame to miss this opportunity. The only change that many stakeholders have proposed is lengthening the proposed two-year extension. We already have almost 4 years of experience using telehealth, we don’t need patients or providers to be hesitant to continue to invest the time and resources in telehealth if Medicare’s support could be withdrawn in two years.
I encourage you to call your House representative and tell them to support H.R. 7623. Also, tell your Senators to get on board any companion bill to H.R. 7623 – S. 3967. This legislation can affect you directly and can save you time and money. Let’s not pass up on this great opportunity that directly affects you and me.
Best,
Thair