Watch the AMA's daily COVID-19 update, with insights from AMA leaders and experts about the pandemic.
Featured topic and speakers
AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger speaks with AMA President-elect Susan R. Bailey, MD, Senior Vice President, Advocacy, Todd Askew, and Vice President, Government Affairs, Cynthia Brown on updates regarding COVID-19 including the COVID-19 stimulus bill and what it provides physicians and both small and large practices.
Learn more at the AMA COVID-19 resource center.
Transcript
Unger: Hello, this is the American Medical Association's COVID-19 update.
Today we're going to talk about what's in the stimulus bill for physicians, and I'm joined today by Dr. Susan Bailey, President-Elect of the AMA and an allergist and immunologist in Fort Worth, Texas, Todd Askew, AMA's senior vice president of advocacy in Washington, D.C., and Cindy Brown, vice president of government affairs in Washington, D.C. I'm Todd Unger, AMA's chief experience officer in Chicago.
Dr. Bailey, the COVID-19 pandemic is having a huge impact on physician practices.
Dr. Bailey: Hi, Todd, and yes, that's the understatement of the year. As you know, most physicians work in small practices. Our particular practice has only 10 people total, and the AMA has been very concerned about the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic is going to have, and is having now, on our entire healthcare system.
We're all facing supply shortages. We're facing staffing issues, obviously financial problems that we have to get straightened out so that we can take care of our patients and continue to deal with this pandemic.
So that's why the AMA has been calling on Congress to provide direct funding to the front lines—to physician practices, to hospitals, to healthcare systems, so that we can continue to fight as hard as we can. And so we're really glad that the president signed the recent stimulus package that will give the healthcare system the assistance it needs to keep up the fight.
Unger: Todd, can you tell us about some of the key provisions in the stimulus package that apply to physicians?
Askew: Sure. Well, let me mention just a couple specifically related to the challenge a lot of physicians are having in keeping their doors open right now given decreased patient volume and need to preserve PPE and cancel elective procedures.
For practices of fewer than 500 or 500 or fewer employees, physicians will be eligible for a new Small Business Administration loan product that will be forgivable if you maintain salaries from February 15th through June the 30th. And those qualifying practices would be able to receive up to $10 million to cover salaries and overhead, and at the end of that period, much of that can qualify to be forgiven. So it operates much like a grant.
For larger practices, there is a fund for hospitals, physician practices and other providers of $100 billion. Initially, it was conceived as a way to help prepare, to set up isolation units or additional hospital beds, but as it developed, the recognition of the threat of lost revenue on practice stability was recognized. And that fund can be used to replace lost revenue due to COVID.
It is still in the implementation phase. The details are still being worked out. But those are just two of the opportunities that the bill presents to provide some stability for physician practices beyond all the important things that Dr. Bailey referenced to helping prepare and get the equipment and the testing kits and things like that.
Unger: Cindy, any additional provisions that you wanted to point out?
Brown: Sure, one thing I would add to what Todd said was that special HHS fund—that's available to physicians who lose revenue because of COVID. They don't have to treat COVID patients. So those people who are not doing procedures and things like that, don't have patients coming in the door, can still get some of that money.
We've also been trying to ease up the restrictions on telemedicine. They've been eased up tremendously, including now they will do coverage for telephone calls and remote patient monitoring and things like that. So again, physicians can still see patients without having to invite them in the door.
Dr. Bailey: Todd, I've been getting a lot of questions from physicians about how the loan process is going to work. How do physicians apply for things? What kind of help is going to be forthcoming from the AMA to help us get this help that we need?
Askew: We have some guidance that's about to go up on the website on how to engage in this process. The Small Business Administration is also starting to populate more guidance on their website. But the process is mainly through your existing lender.
Physicians, with this new program stood up, can probably, as soon as this week, begin contacting their lenders about how to apply, what type of expenses qualify. There's some very detailed things in there. But there's a max interest rate, there's no fees associated with it, so it is a pretty good opportunity for those practices that qualify to help offset some of the expenses that they're dealing with right now.
Unger: Todd, as the pandemic and response continue, where do you see the AMA's focus continuing in relation to resources for physicians?
Askew: I don't think anybody's under any illusion that what's been done so far is going to be enough to completely turn, not only the economy around, but to help make all physician practices on some solid financial ground as we need to see them because a healthcare system needs to continue.
It's not only COVID right now. We still have everything else that was going on before still going on. I think there's a recognition among our allies in Congress that they need to look at additional ways to get support to physicians, and we're pursuing that right now.
I don't know if Cindy wants to add anything to some of the conversations that we're having both with the administration and with Congress.
Brown: Well, yes, with the administration, we've actually gotten very good reception there with the idea of regulatory relief and getting rid of issues like Stark laws that interfere with the ability for you to share resources with hospitals and other physicians.
Askew: There's medical liability relief, too, for physicians who used
Brown: Medical liability.
Askew: to volunteer and that's a concern.
Brown: We're exploring the opportunity of perhaps coming up with other kinds of liability relief, as well, and we're also providing a lot of resources on the website that include step-by-step instructions about how to look at your practice situation and figure out what kind of loan product or grants and so forth are best for you.
Dr. Bailey: I think that the liability protection part of this is going to be incredibly important as physicians are having to make difficult decisions in the emergency room on who gets top priority in terms of treatment.
I'm also concerned about the pent-up demand that's developing within the system so that as COVID-19, hopefully, we reach the other end of that curve, all of the conditions that patients haven't gotten care for, for one reason or another, are going to be suddenly seeking care, and our practices need to stay strong so that we can help those patients when a secondary surge happens, and I know the AMA is working hard to help make sure the physicians' practices stay prepared.
Askew: Absolutely. Go ahead, Todd.
Unger: No, go ahead, Todd.
Askew: I was gonna say to your point there, there are more liability concerns related to if a physician put off an elective service and something happened because of that delay. You're also having physicians who work for large systems being brought from one part of the system in to provide care that they're not used to providing or haven't done for many years, and so there's a lot of concerns about the demands and the potential liability, and there are conversations ongoing about how to address those concerns.
Dr. Bailey: That's great.
Unger: This has been an excellent discussion and I want to thank my guests today, Dr. Susan Bailey, Todd Askew, and Cindy Brown.
We'll be back tomorrow with another update talking about ethical considerations with the pandemic.
For updated resources on COVID-19, like our quick guide to telemedicine, go to ama-assn.org/covid-19.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this video are those of the participants and/or do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.
