October 20, 2019: 500+ word Open Letter to Members of Congress by DPC Coaltion President asking for support and co-sponsorship of the The Primary Care Enhancement Act. Missing words: telehealth, telemedicine, virtual, telephone, phone, text message, text, SMS.
March 26, 2020: DPC Coalition laments exclusion of the bill from CARES despite being sold as “means of expanding virtual care to 23 million more Americans with HDHP/HSA plans.”
Fortunately, all 23 million HDHP members dodged that bullet when a huge swatch of FFS primary care docs (along with DPC docs willing to code) stepped up to virtual care practically overnight.
Have a look at this for example:
In literally a week we have had 50 providers convert to providing a virtual care model that includes phone-visits, e-messaging, and video visits. We’ve seen the mindset shift from considering what we might use telehealth for to what we can’t use telehealth for. In just one week we have transitioned 50 percent of our clinic visits to a virtual format.
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/qa-preparing-pandemic-rural-minnesota
It is likely that on a single day or two last week, (3/23 to 3/27) the number of FFS PCPs who learned to telemed exceeded the total number of DPC docs present in country. By April 1, there should be many fold more telemeding FFS docs than telemeding DPC docs. [Indeed, a U.S. Senator from Georgia bet on that a month ago, buying telemedicine-related stock based insider information about the impending disaster. ]
DPC Referee 