With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought a surge in remote health care services. Telehealth has been a creative, transformative way to receive and to practice health care in Maine. As a former registered nurse and a current chronically ill person, I have the privilege of being able to offer an opinion from both sides of the service.

I suffer with a disease called myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and autonomic nervous system dysfunction (dysautonomia). This is a highly disabling, poorly understood disease process that causes a wide range of symptoms across multiple body systems. It has a poorer quality of life scale in comparison to other better-known disabling diseases like heart failure, chronic kidney disease, multiple sclerosis and some cancers. Yet, there are no FDA-approved treatments for these conditions and many doctors know very little, if anything, about how to help people who have these conditions.

Personally, it took 12 years to get diagnosed appropriately with ME/CFS and its comorbidities, and it required seeing over 40 doctors in multiple states to get the answers. Currently, to receive the necessary care to improve my quality of life, I must travel if telehealth is unavailable to see multiple providers quite a distance from my home in order to address even appropriately treating the disease’s symptoms, as most local providers were not able to help me.

As my symptoms have worsened I have become unable to drive. Getting in the car to go to Lewiston, Portland, Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Boston, where I am able to receive more specialized care, always causes an undue amount of stress on my body, taking me days or even weeks to recover to my already low baseline. I know that I am not alone in this struggle, as this disease is very closely intertwined with long COVID, which is affecting millions of Americans.

In the absence of a biomarker for long COVID and ME/CFS and the closing of Maine’s long COVID clinic, there are no doubt many Mainers who have to see multiple specialists all over the state and beyond to receive answers and care. Prior to my physical illnesses becoming worse, I had worked as an outpatient nurse at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was there providing care when telehealth processes were new to the practice. I found that not only was it extremely possible and easier in many cases to provide telehealth services to patients, it also increased the overall productivity for me and other health care providers.

More patients were keeping their telehealth appointments that would have been missed had they been required to come into the office, which no doubt increases revenue for the agency. It also in some cases allowed for me to be able to take nursing visits for other branches that were not possible when all visits were strictly in person. That increased the ability to get patients in more quickly for assessments when multiple nurses across an agency were now an option for scheduling appointments versus only having one in-person option.

This also is a way to increase productivity for those who are in the workforce. When a medical appointment can be done effectively remotely, the travel time to and from an appointment can be eliminated, which reduces the work time missed by employees. This opens up a level of flexibility for those who are fortunate to be able to work while having disabilities as well, as even regular follow-up appointments can take up a lot of time in a week.

Lastly, this also can serve a lot of people where transportation is a barrier. Many people such as myself are in need of Medicaid’s ride services for appointments. At times these services can be unreliable due to staffing and scheduling difficulties or weather, and this causes missed appointments. In these circumstances, telehealth can allow the patient to still see the provider so that time and revenue is not lost.

Telehealth services to Medicare beneficiaries were due to end on March 31, with only a couple of specific exceptions. While the recent passage by Congress of the continuing resolution offers a six-month extension to that deadline, we are once again faced with a terrifying, out-of-touch cliff. Telehealth is the future of health care, and it’s important that all Mainers recognize that and urge for the long-term expansion of telehealth services to those who need them.