A revolution has silently occurred for the provision of MH/SA services. We are essential personnel! We are routinely doing telehealth along with family doctors, physician specialists, and psychiatrists. We are able to help people who may have difficulty getting to our office. Hopefully this will help CMS, insurance companies and legislators see the necessity of treating us with the same value as those other doctoral level providers in the physician definition. The need for our services to deal with the stress, anxiety and isolation of life during a pandemic and its aftermath will only increase.  I will leave you with a link that helps you understand how much advocacy APA has done to offer guidance that helps our patients, in the interpretation of a bill translated to law, which impacts the regulation of our practice. Your input into the process, regardless of the legislation, is often necessary at many points along the way, whether it is to urge sponsorship, or to push for specific regulatory interpretations. Please consider responding when asked. It is important. Let us not loose the momentum of modernizing our practices due to necessity the pandemic has created.  

Here is the link of all the things we can now do, which begs the question of why this should be time limited:

https://www.apaservices.org/practice/reimbursement/government/medicare-telehealth-temporary-changes

Take care of yourselves during this pandemic so that you can continue to help you families, friends, colleagues and clients make it through these challenging times.

Barbara Giardina, Ph.D.