Radiology and other physician specialties are imploring the federal government to help replenish their personal protective equipment supplies as the industry faces shortages amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
A poll from the Medical Group Management Association released Thursday found that a staggering 89% of practice leaders are facing a shortage of such PPE. In a letter to House and Senate Leaders Friday, the MGMA—which represents 55,000 practice leaders across the U.S., including radiology—asked lawmakers to help physicians address supply shortages during this “unprecedented national emergency.”
MGMA and other physician groups including the American Medical Association are additionally asking Congress for tax relief, no-interest loans and payment for virtual visits, among other measures, to help struggling practices sustain the current pandemic.
“We also strongly urge that Congress take all possible actions to ensure that every physician, and every healthcare worker, has access to critically needed PPE,” the physician groups wrote. “The lack of such supplies is placing both physicians and patients at great risk of acquiring COVID-19 and spreading it to others,” the groups noted, adding that Congress must take “all possible actions” to increase capacity to manufacture, acquire and distribute such equipment.
In a series of tweets Sunday, outspoken Yale radiologist and professor Howard Forman, MD, slammed the Trump administration for allegedly doing little to bolster equipment supplies in the U.S.
“You have failed miserably in this time of greatest need,” Forman tweeted to his 38,000-plus followers and the president March 22. “At a time when our healthcare workforce desperately needs #PPENow, you have aided and abetted #PPEShortages by NOT using the full power of your office ([Defense Production Act]) to ensure that both manufacturing as well as logistics can deliver in time to avert catastrophe,” he added.
Guidance published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology last month urged physicians to protect staff from the coronavirus by wearing disposable isolation gowns with fluid-resistant characteristics, gloves with cuffs, protective goggles and a face mask over such eyewear. Providers have reportedly taken drastic actions in response to this shortage, reusing some equipment, crafting their own or paying for supplies out of their own pockets.
In another separate letter to the president, the AMA, American Hospital Association and American Nurses Association asked the administration to invoke the Defense Production Act (as Forman did) to increase the domestic production of medical supplies and equipment. “As COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the country, these supplies are urgently needed to care for our patients and communities,” the groups wrote.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.