A number of health care changes that both providers and patients have grown used to during the pandemic will disappear on Thursday as the COVID public health emergency ends.
Why it matters: Congress has stepped in already and extended a number of COVID-era flexibilities. But the end of others could hurt access to health care, make it more costly, and stymie some of the positive innovations that emerged from the pandemic, providers say.
“There’s not a lot of great stuff that happened during the [public health emergency], but what it did do is it actually truly was an impetus for us to develop programs for access for patients,” Edmund Fernandez, medical director of telehealth for Advocate Aurora Health, told Axios.
