Health Equity

On Monday, MSDC and fourteen medical associations and practices sent a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser asking her to extend certain public health emergency allowances.

The letter begins by thanking the Mayor for her scientific, fact-based leadership during the pandemic. It then notes that many of the allowances made during the public health emergency are important to post-PHE medicine. As the letter states, "these temporary changes have proven to be effective tools to preventing infectious disease as well as increasing medical care to all residents."

The letter lists four main areas for consideration:

• Expand telemedicine site of care to permit telemedicine appointments outside of medical facilities
• Permit existing relationships between patients and providers to continue across District state lines
• Support equitable reimbursement for telemedicine with in-person medical care
• Waive civil and medical liability for treatment decisions made in good faith during the public health emergency.
  

September 28, 2020

The Honorable Muriel Bowser
Mayor of the District of Columbia
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Mayor Bowser – 

On behalf of the physician community in the District, thank you for providing science-based, factual guidance in helping the District navigate the COVID-19 epidemic. 

We represent many of the largest medical practices in the District of Columbia. Our practices have treated District residents for decades prior to 2020 and have been key to the medical response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Treating the residents of the District during the pandemic has shown that the practice of medicine is not simply an office visit. Moving forward, we urge your administration to make permanent some of the temporary changes made during the public health emergency. These temporary changes have proven to be effective tools to preventing infectious disease as well as increasing medical care to all residents.

The changes we urge you to permanently adopt include:

• Expand telemedicine site of care to permit telemedicine appointments outside of medical facilities
• Permit existing relationships between patients and providers to continue across District state lines
• Support equitable reimbursement for telemedicine with in-person medical care
• Waive civil and medical liability for treatment decisions made in good faith during the public health emergency.

As practices who provide care for a large percentage of the District population, we urge you to take these steps to keep the District a leader in medical care during these uncertain times.

Sincerely,
Medical Society of the District of Columbia
Arthritis & Rheumatism Associates, PC
Ashesh D. Patel, MD PC
Barnard Medical Group
Capital Digestive Care
Catherine May, MD
DC Chapter, American College of Physicians
DC Section, American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists 
District of Columbia Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians 
The GW Medical Faculty Associates 
J. Desiree Pineda, MD, LLC
Maryland/DC Society of Clinical Oncology
Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group 
Washington Internists Group, LLC
Washington Psychiatric Society 

CC: LaQuandra Nesbitt, MD; Director of the Department of Health (DC Health)
The Honorable Phil Mendelson, Chair of the Council of the District of Columbia
Wayne Turnage, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services