AAP Voices

I own a pediatric practice on the outskirts of Atlanta. We are considered a rural area and provide care for more than 10,000 patients in our community. 

When the coronavirus hit, our billing and visits plummeted to less than a third of our normal visits. I had to lay off staff, including a nurse practitioner, and have applied for jobs in telemedicine just to help pay my personal bills. 

Early on, I put the word out to our families on social media to shelter-at-home, in spite of the economic damage to me and my practice. And I have been available to patients seven days a week to try to keep them out of the ERs and urgent care centers, where crowds of sick people could make the spread of the virus worse. 

That’s why I am so offended to see physicians who treat Medicare patients getting free money while pediatricians get nothing. Obviously, in pediatrics we don't see Medicare patients. 

The second round of CMS funding included Medicaid providers, but only those who see Medicare patients. So they, again, left every single pediatrician out of it. Pediatricians have been completely shafted by the government in all of this. 

My colleagues who see adult patients have received tens of thousands of dollars, one even received over $200,000 for being a Medicare provider. They are all shocked that no help has been given to pediatricians. 

I feel that the government has completely neglected pediatricians. 

I also am worried about the financial stability of pediatric practices in the Atlanta area, knowing how pediatric business has plummeted and knowing how vital they and their specialists are to the care of the children in our state. I know practices that laid off their staff, except for a physician (the owner) and one employee. I’ve heard of multiple practices in that situation in Georgia alone.

And we may be creating another crisis on top of this. If we have a measles pandemic on the heels of this, I suppose all the blame will be directed at us.

Lastly, I have 10 N95 masks that we have been reusing since the beginning of the pandemic, and I am unable to buy more. Supply companies are not filling our mask orders. Everything is going to hospitals. My staff still needs to swab throats for things like strep, and I am worried our PPE supply will not last much longer.     

We are restricted in how much Lysol, how many hand wipes, how much hand sanitizer, and even gloves we can order. And as far as protective disposable gowns go, we are unable to get any more of these when our supply runs out. 

As primary care providers, we are low on the equipment priority list and yet we are on the front line of seeing patients. None of this makes sense to me at all.

Send in your COVID-19 pandemic story, and we may share it here and on our social media channels. https://bit.ly/2XVvJIu