SUPPLY CHAIN & SUSTAINABILITY
“ FROM A SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE , THERE ' S BEEN HEIGHTENED AWARENESS SPECIFICALLY ON THE DIVERSITY IN THE PHYSICAL THERAPY PROFESSION - OR LACK THEREOF ”
DR . HEIDI JANNENGA CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF CLINICAL OFFICER OF WEBPT
because , in our role , we didn ’ t have authorisation to conduct telehealth visits , or at least get paid for telehealth visits .
“ Each state has a Practice Act that determines the scope of work a therapist can do . Then there are federal regulations , as well . Neither one of those allowed therapists to do telehealth visits . There were a lot of constraints limiting telehealth . Part of that is regulatory , in terms of just the rules and regulations that we have to follow per our licence to practise physical therapy .”
When the United States government determined a state of emergency , it actually helped to change that telehealth law , enabling therapists to provide physical therapy and health services via telehealth .
“ We did actually do it very quickly . In our state of rehab therapy report , sort of at the height , it was about 50 % of therapy professionals using video conferencing or virtual meeting software , and that was really for the first time in 2020 ,” said Jannenga . “ It was an interesting , very difficult change , but we did it . But now that things are coming back to normal , you see those numbers plummeting back down to somewhere around 2 % to 5 %.” healthcare-digital . com 113