Heidi Alexander: “I want to speak for a few minutes about the changes to telehealth during the last five months--one of the most dramatic…”

“I want to speak for a few minutes about the changes to telehealth during the last five months--one of the most dramatic developments in the delivery of medical services ever--and why we in Congress should make many of those changes permanent. I recently heard from a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Nashville who has been seeing patients during the COVID-19 pandemic using telehealth--which means she uses the Internet to see her patients over video or she calls them on the telephone. She told me about one of her elderly patients who, before the COVID- 19 pandemic, got to her appointments by walking from her high-rise apartment to Gallatin Road, catching a bus, and then walking from the bus stop to the clinic. When the patient got to the clinic, she had to wait for her appointment. Then, when the appointment was over, she had to do all of these steps in reverse to get back home. Because of telehealth, this nurse said that her patient was in tears out of appreciation that she could now have appointments from her own home. She had access to health care without the long journey, and she could still receive her medications. The nurse said that several of her other elderly patients have had similar experiences and have asked if they could continue to have access to telehealth in the future, even after the pandemic.…”