AAP Voices

I own a pediatric practice that includes myself, another part-time pediatrician and a full-time pediatric nurse practitioner. I have a total of 10 employees, and I am struggling to pay them right now. 

We did get a PPP loan, but it did not include funding for my own salary and it’s only enough to keep the clinic running for another month at most. 

Our revenue is down by 60% to 70% because office visits are down by that much. We are trying to do as many virtual visits as we can, but reimbursement from our private insurers is only at 60% of what we get for an in-office visit. 

We are still strongly encouraging all of our patients who are due for vaccines to keep their appointments, and we have made strong changes to the office to protect our healthy patients. However, we are finding that very few families want to come in right now.

If we do not receive significant funding within the next few weeks, I will have to start cutting costs. And if this continues, I can foresee being in danger of having to close my practice in the next few months.

We need our private insurers to reimburse us at least as much for virtual visits as they do for in-office visits— they take just as long and sometimes longer. And we need significant government grants (not more debt) to keep us running.

I really want our office to continue to be able to run full-time. I want to continue to be available for our patients.

And I especially want to continue to be a resource for our poorer families. We have always provided a significant amount of free care to those who are uninsured and unable to pay.

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