“Am I covered here?”
This is a question physicians throughout Pennsylvania have been asking since Gov. Tom Wolf issued an executive order May 6 that granted health care workers medical liability immunity in some settings but not others.
Think of this as medicine’s version of the Verizon commercial, where a man in horn-rimmed glasses wanders to various places testing his cell phone reception.
“Can you hear me now?”
The Verizon commercial’s unspoken answer asserts that your cell phone reception is, indeed, covered in all places. The same cannot be said about Gov. Wolf’s executive order for health care liability immunity.
Are health care workers covered in hospitals? Yes. Nursing homes? Yes. A doctor’s office outside a hospital? No. Telehealth? No.
The problem is that COVID-19 infections are not just limited to hospitals and nursing homes. And physicians and nurses caring for COVID-19 patients are not limited to hospitals and long-term care facilities. Gov. Wolf’s executive order fails to account for our integrated health system.
For example, as a family physician, I see my hospital and office patients as part of a medical practice, which is on the same campus as our hospital.
It happens that my office is located in the same complex as the hospital. It takes me only a few minutes to walk from one location to the other, and I never have to cross a street to do so.
And yet, I am covered under Gov. Wolf’s executive order when I see patients in the hospital but not when I see patients a few hundred yards away in my office.
Since the pandemic began in March, the Wolf Administration has said physician offices and telemedicine would play a vital role in treating patients with COVID-19 symptoms and preventing them from overwhelming hospitals.
Physician offices have answered that call and, in fact, are one of the reasons Pennsylvania hospitals never exceeded capacity during the peak weeks of the pandemic.
Most of these medical offices cut back on in-person care but continued to see patients through telemedicine technology, which came at a great cost.
A recent survey by the Pennsylvania Medical Society showed more than a quarter of these practices struggled to get reimbursed for telehealth visits. Gov. Wolf vetoed legislation earlier this spring that would have mandated private insurers to reimburse for telehealth.
In the coming months, we expect personal injury attorneys in Pennsylvania to pursue families of COVID- 19 patients, ready to sue physicians for bad outcomes. Since they now cannot sue for care provided in hospitals or nursing homes, physicians providing care in their offices will become an easy target for malpractice claims.
Gov. Wolf’s executive order provides exceptions for gross negligence and willful misconduct, even for health care workers in hospital settings.
There is still much that physicians do not know about COVID-19. There is no standard of care or proven treatment. On-going research is providing new information on a daily basis.
However, we do know that a quick response to patients with COVID-19 symptoms – whether they visit us in a hospital or an office – is essential to providing the highest quality of care, as is the freedom for patients to access care wherever it is most convenient and available.
That is why I urge Gov. Wolf and state lawmakers to follow the lead of New York, New Jersey, and other northeastern states by expanding medical liability protections to health care workers in all settings.
COVID-19 is presenting enough difficult challenges for our state’s medical community. Let us give them one less concern during this unprecedented time.
Dr. Lawrence John is president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society and a family physician from Pittsburgh.