Montage Health is on the cusp of using telehealth to solve a Covid-19 treatment conundrum.

As the Covid-19 pandemic enters the start of its fourth year, there are nagging problems for both patients and hospitals. For patients, finding an available doctor in Monterey County quickly can be challenging. Time is of the essence for receiving the antiviral medication Paxlovid, which needs to be administered within five to seven days of testing positive. With nowhere to go, patients wind up at local emergency rooms.

“We’ve had people come in and say, ‘Nobody will take care of me,’” says Sameer Bakhda, an emergency room physician at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. The staff treats everyone who walks in the door, but it creates a potential for spreading the virus as well as longer wait times. The challenge prompted Bakhda and other doctors and staff at Montage Health, CHOMP’s nonprofit parent company, to craft a solution.

Within the month, a telehealth service is scheduled to launch specifically to treat Covid, including prescribing Paxlovid. Anyone who tests positive for Covid, even with a home test, will be able to request help online and be seen virtually by a physician the same day or early the next day. “The real benefit is being able to have an appointment with a board certified emergency physician,” says Meg Dingae, Montage’s director of digital health.

Added to the challenge for patients – especially uninsured or under-insured patients – is that free treatment for Covid, as currently required by the state of California, could disappear as early as this spring if the Biden Administration allows a March 2020 federal public health emergency declaration to finally sunset. The price of Montage’s program is still being worked out, but Dingae says there will likely be a low-cost, self-pay option.

Currently, California offers information on how to find free treatment at covid19.ca.gov/treatment, or by calling 833-422-4255. The California Department of Public Health contracted with a New York-based tech company called Sesame to provide free Covid telehealth care at sesamecare.com/covid