Mother, 90 years old, suffers from generalized anxiety disorder. Has had extra anxiety recently due to her health issues and health issues of one of her other children. She has gastrointestinal issues that are being treated by a doctor, but hard for her to get to appointments, and it is hard to get appointments with her doctor (they have postponed her visits more than once, Nurse Practitioner wants her seeing doctor). She has had anxiety medicine prescribed by family physician, but he is not expert, and it is hard to see him also (Getting appointments and also getting her to appointments - I live out of state, mother resists asking other family members, etc.) Telemedicine seems logical, but where to start?
First, trying to convince her. Second, where to try? Have checked with her Medigap insurance and it does not cover telehealth. (Do not understand why insurance would deny a telehealth visit - it is just making it harder for people to get care that they need, but that is another issue.)
Would appreciate (1) Best place to get help. (2) Tips to get insurance to cover (because I think she would be more amenable to using).
SAme with the Dr and psych doc, but they know me vey well and it went ok. Not great, just OK.
She probably should have someone with her when she does these calls, they can be tricky. Gently reminders as to WHY she's called, etc.
I don't know how well anxiety can be dxed over a teleconference--esp if she has not been dxed as such before.
As far as Medicare, since there still are not options for in person calls still in a lot of areas--I would think they'd be covered. But DO check first.
Medicare covers it.
He offered to do Facetime, etc. but this way I don't have to get "fixed up" and can just relax in my robe or whatever and chat away.
Who did you speak to at the Medigap company ? I would bump this up to a supervisor.
On insurance, perhaps it’s this?…… what has been an unexpected issue due to Telemed bc of Covid, is that a provider is not licensed for your state OR if you’re on an Advantage plan they require only services from their limited group (& none on TelMed) so the insurance claim gets denied. We have it happen where I am in New Orleans as lots of folks live x state line in MS or stayed there back when Covid raging last year to do work-from-home, but all their docs r in NOLA. Never an issue before as it was in person visit, labs run, etc. But for TeleMed it is. Also can become a prob for RXs as the doctor doesn’t have a MS drug registry #. If your on MedCo / Express Scripts the 90 day RX by mail is ok. But to get RX filled at local pharmacy becomes problematic and atop that for the behavioral drugs those often get tried out for short period to see how effective and these often need to be filled more at a local pharmacy.
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