Opportunity:
Train and resource health care providers to adequately identify and assist people with Long COVID.
For: Health care providers, and schools of medicine and public health.
Recommended Ideas:
Sample care pathways:
Develop and distribute sample care pathways for health care providers, so diagnoses can confidently be made at initial appointments while further testing and treatments are conducted.
CPT® code guidance:
Share guidance with health care providers on CPT codes that can be used for Long COVID.
Training incentives:
Incentivize training on Long COVID for current health care providers, focusing in particular on the primary care and pediatrics communities, but reaching as broadly as dentists, opthamologists, and psychologists who may observe possible symptoms.
Health care provider training:
Engage academic partners to launch an expansive outreach campaign to train health care providers through in-person and virtual presentations on what Long COVID is, how to identify it, and suggested care pathways.
Regular Long COVID digests:
Regularly distribute educational resources to health care providers broadly with the latest information about Long COVID findings, testing, and treatments.
Long COVID education in medical schools:
Increase training on Long COVID and infection-associated chronic conditions in medical schools, and expand course requirements to include “narrative medicine,” an approach that widens the view of people with Long COVID beyond their medical histories.
Reimbursements for reviewing complex patient histories:
Revise health care provider reimbursement structures so that they are incentivized to review patient histories in advance of appointments, and are able to spend more time with patients exhibiting Long COVID symptoms or other infection-associated chronic illnesses.
