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Providers caring for patients with behavioral health disorders face unique challenges in balancing safe public health measures and clinical protocols during the COVID-19 emergency, the AHA today said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

Specifically, AHA requested guidance on how to apply general guidelines around COVID-19 for this vulnerable patient population, including specialized guidance for inpatient psychiatric facilities, and on providing additional services such as medication management and use of telehealth modalities.

It also urged the agency to ensure behavioral health services are appropriately reimbursed and behavioral health clinicians and professionals can receive emergency medical supplies and priority testing; relax staffing ratio requirements and certain restrictions on what tasks practitioners may perform; and preemptively plan for the likely surge of behavioral health patients that will follow the COVID-19 pandemic.