April Is National Occupational Therapy Month — And This April, Occupational Therapists Need Our Help

Let’s give a hand to the occupational therapists who work hard to make the lives of our senior loved ones more comfortable and fulfilling. If you are a senior caregiver, you know the valuable services that occupational therapists provide — from training in basic mobility to helping with domestic tasks, self-care routines and important communication, recreational and social skills.

What would we do without occupational therapists?

Unfortunately, as the COVID-19 crisis — and the required social isolation for seniors and modified home health orders for therapists — continues, we may be forced to find out.

Did you know that you can help keep these essential therapists in contact with your senior loved ones? Here’s how:

On March 30, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a ruling in response to the COVID-19 emergency, expanding CMS billing support to a range of telehealth services. While we applaud this move, the expanded list did NOT include occupational therapists.

The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) is currently advocating with both CMS and Congress to expand telehealth billing to include occupational therapy practitioners. If you have senior loved ones and you care about their continued access to occupational therapists, please visit the AOTA information page at the link below. Along with valuable information on COVID-19 and the important work of therapists, the link includes a downloadable template letter that you can customize and submit during the CMS public comment period, which ends on June 1, 2020.

The Association has lifted members-only access to this content in response to the severity of the crisis — and their need for public advocacy assistance. We urge you to help if you can.

And we’d like to remind you that our help is always just a phone call away. Contact us 24/7 for a free assessment to better determine your family’s needs: (817) 887-9401.

Source- American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) Information Page on Occupational Therapy in the Era of Coronavirus (COVID-19) https://www.aota.org/Practice/Health-Wellness/COVID19.aspx