SAN ANTONIO — During a hearing Thursday, a San Antonio doctor told lawmakers millions of Americans may soon need disability benefits because lingering COVID-19 symptoms keep them from working.
Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez says it is fair to characterize the pandemic as a "mass-disabling" event.
Still, she says long-haulers are oft-forgotten.
"We have vaccines, we have Remdesivir, we have monoclonal antibodies, That's for everyone at the front end, which is really important," she told KENS 5 in an interview Monday. "We need treatments now for people who have long COVID-19 so they're not left behind."
Gutierrez is the medical director of Rehabilitation Medicine Services at University Health and chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at UT Health San Antonio. She oversees a number of long COVID-19 clinics in Bexar County.
"These patients are having overwhelming fatigue. They have difficulty with concentration. They can't find their words," she said, likening long-haulers' symptoms to those of a brain trauma patient.
But COVID-19 research has largely focused on treatment for acute illness, and insurance companies rarely cover treatment for people with lingering symptoms.
Medicare offers a safety net to long-haulers who've lost employer-sponsored health insurance because they cannot work. But people who qualify for disability benefits through Social Security services must wait two years before they are eligible for Medicare coverage.
"During those two years, patients are getting worse," she said. "They're not getting better."
Gutierrez testified before a House Ways and Means subcommittee in support of efforts to shorten the period of time a disabled person must wait to enroll in Medicare and efforts to permanently expand telehealth access.
Rules that allow patients to speak virtually with their doctors could expire in March. Gutierrez told lawmakers that many of her patients do not have the energy to visit a doctor's office.
She says long COVID-19 threatens to widen health care gaps. Patients without easy access to doctors could "suffer in silence," she said.
"This was probably one of the most important things I could do," she added.