CLEVELAND — Cleveland Clinic announced they will start charging for some of their MyChart messaging fees beginning November 17th.
MyChart is an online platform that lets patients communicate with their provider virtually. Paula Mueller, the founder and president of a nonprofit organization called Elderly Advocates, spoke on the decision decision.
“I’m just shocked,” she said.
In a statement made by the Cleveland Clinic hospital system, they shared which services will now be billed. It includes messages that are about changing medication, requests to complete medical forms, changes to a long-term condition and more. Mueller expressed how she feels about this.
“The only thing they really are covering to me it seems like it’s things that bring them revenue like scheduling an appointment, asking a question that leads to an appointment,” Mueller said.
Messages that deal with scheduling appointments, provider updates, and prescription refills will still be free, but Mueller thinks this will discourage many people from continuing their use with MyChart.
“When I look at my mother who’s 80, you know she’s not going to try to figure out what she’s going to be charged for and what she’s not,” she said.
Since she works directly with the elderly, she is concerned about how this change will affect senior citizens.
“The elderly community is very cautious and they’re on very limited income, so number one I would really hope that they don’t charge any, you know, our seniors on Medicare, Medicaid, you know I would hope that they’re not going to charge them,” she said.
Mueller said she fears the elderly will refrain from asking for help because of this change.
“I think this is going to maybe deter some elderly from asking questions,” she said.
Cleveland Clinic released in a statement that because of the increase in online medicine from the pandemic, that providers are answering double the amount of messages on this platform, which is why they are billing patient insurance on some services.
