Testing shifts
The government will continue to provide free COVID-19 vaccines because it still has supplies on hand. When this stock runs out, commercial insurance providers will be required to cover the immunizations, as they are considered preventive, but people without insurance will have to pay out of pocket.
The AAFP is pushing the Biden administration and Congress to keep the purchase price of those vaccines low enough that clinicians can keep them in stock, according to Dr. Iroku-Malize. Once the federal government transitions COVID-19 vaccines to the commercial market – as early as later in 2023 – it may pose some challenges for providers.
“If the price of the vaccines is too high, physician practices may struggle to make the upfront investment in COVID-19 vaccines,” Dr. Iroku-Malize said. “Patients often prefer to receive vaccine counseling and administration from their usual source of primary care, like their family physician.”
The federal government has also said it still has a supply of treatments for the public to access for free, but has not revealed how much it has on hand or given a timeline for the transition to the private market.
COVID-19 tests, meanwhile, are no longer covered because of the end of the public health emergency, and cost about $45 per kit on average, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Pediatrician Lisa Costello, MD, MPH, knows that price point will be a challenge for some families she cares for at West Virginia University Medicine Children’s Hospital in Morgantown. Many still ask her where they can access free tests.
“Testing if you’re a higher risk person is something we need to ensure that people continue to be educated about,” Dr. Costello said.
She’s hopeful that COVID-19 vaccines and treatments such as Paxlovid will stay free in the coming months so patients can continue to easily access them.
Future of telehealth
Relaxed regulations of prescribing controlled substances via telehealth and across state lines allowed clinicians to treat patients near and far during the pandemic. But many providers were worried about a proposal from the Drug Enforcement Administration to clamp down on the prescribing of controlled substances via telehealth, according to A. Mark Fendrick, MD, an internal medicine physician at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
“We were all panicking about what was going to happen to what is for many clinicians a very valuable policy,” Dr. Fendrick said of the telehealth flexibilities introduced during COVID-19.
The DEA, after getting 38,000 comments on their proposed regulations, pulled back on that plan, delaying the cliff until November.
Dr. Fendrick said that telehealth has allowed clinicians to reach patients who have historically faced barriers to care, such as lacking transportation.
“The benefits of that outweigh the potential harms,” he said. “Every policy you make that tightens access because you want to decrease the untoward and unfortunate outcomes will also decrease access to clinical indications.”
The AAFP said it hopes for clear guidance from the DEA in the coming months on what the new telehealth landscape for prescribing will look like.