The pandemic allowed people to receive prescriptions for mental health and opioid addiction through telemedicine. Now Kansas clinicians want those flexibilities to be permanent. At the Citizens Health hospital in Colby, pandemic-driven rule changes let doctors prescribe chronic pain and mental health medications over virtual appointments. That gave hundreds of patients in northwest Kansas access to life-changing drugs. “Everybody struggles with access to mental health care,” Jenny Niblock, a nurse practitioner at the medical center, said. “Rural Kansas struggles even worse.” Before the pandemic, the only way to get a prescription for a federally regulated drug was through an in-person doctor’s visit.
Source: Garden City Telegram
