Long COVID is crashing the retirement hopes of many Americans - MarketWatch

This is commonly called long COVID, and the symptoms include difficulty breathing or shortness of breath; tiredness or fatigue; symptoms that get worse after physical or mental activity; and difficulty thinking or concentrating, sometimes referred to as brain fog.

Some of these patients, often called long haulers, also experience damage to multiple organs, including the brain, heart, lungs and kidneys.

 Studies estimate that between one-quarter to one-third of COVID-19 patients develop long COVID — regardless of whether these long haulers had severe illness, mild illness or showed no symptoms at all during their initial COVID infection.

Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, a rehabilitative medicine physician in the long COVID clinic at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, said in an interview that long COVID symptoms have been “devastating” to her patients’ lives and livelihoods. .

“For my patients dealing with long COVID, it is a full-time job to feel better,” she said, listing the daily medications, breathing practices, physical therapy and cognitive exercises required just to “be able to function a little bit.” .

The best new idea in retirement for people dealing with long-term COVID symptoms is a sobering one: Take a look at your plans, and see if they need to change.

A data analysis by the independent nonprofit FAIR Health for Morning Consult found that about 78,000 privately insured Americans were treated for a post-COVID condition between October 2021 (when federal health officials created a diagnostic code to identify long COVID patients) and the end of January 2022, alone.

“But a lot of people with long COVID are in underserved and marginalized communities who either can’t access a long COVID diagnosis and can’t access treatment options — which are still relatively minimal — or they still don’t know that they have long COVID, because the public health messaging really isn’t there.”  .

While aphasia is usually caused by stroke or head trauma, there have been case reports of COVID patients developing aphasia or aphasia-like symptoms, too. .

He was already living with several chronic diseases, including myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), before developing long COVID in 2020. .

Long haulers said they have often struggled to find health care professionals or employers to recognize their symptoms, or take their long COVID seriously.

At the same time, the chronic fatigue and brain fog that many long haulers suffer can make it even more difficult to navigate the bureaucratic red tape required to file for disability or health insurance claims. .

The New School’s Ghilarducci said that long haulers need extended unemployment benefits to give them the extra time they need to recover and get back to work — particularly those over 50 who are on the cusp of retirement. .

The way Ghilarducci sees it, the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs must brace for new waves of long haulers applying for these benefits.

Under the new guidance, a person with long COVID has a disability if the person’s condition or any of its symptoms is a “physical or mental” impairment that “substantially limits” one or more major life activities, such as caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, and working, among others. 

Department of Health and Human Services to develop a national action plan to tackle the long COVID health crisis

This includes expanding research, care and disability services for people suffering from post-COVID conditions by investing $20 million next year to investigate how healthcare systems can best help those with long COVID, mentor primary care practices, and develop multi-specialty clinics across the country, as Reuters reported

But while these are steps in the right direction, many long COVID patients are still struggling to get medical care or to access disability benefits right now. 

David Putrino, who works at the Mount Sinai Center for Post-COVID Care in New York City, said the government needs to enforce long COVID support

For Putrino, the current situation with long COVID is reminiscent of the years it took for companies to obey the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, and access to state and local government programs and services

“We still have insurers denying coverage; they say the rehabilitation is not an approved treatment … which is a disgusting loophole, but they are using it to deny people care because they don’t want to pay for it,” said Putrino.“What we’re staring down the barrel of right now is, insurers reimburse whatever they want, and employers say, ‘Well I don’t believe you have long COVID, prove to me you have long COVID,’ and there’s no consequences for any of that behavior.” 

Back in Brooklyn, Davids said the disability programs — both publicly-run programs and those run by private insurers — are designed to try and weed out cheaters, rather than serve people in need

But COVID-19 is a brand-new disease, and there’s no knowing how long these lingering long COVID symptoms could last

Plus, many long haulers experience intermittent disability; their symptoms come and go, causing some periods of more pronounced physical or intellectual limitations than others

The recent Brookings Institution report on long COVID and the labor shortage also called on the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics to work with the National Institutes of Health in researching long COVID and determining just how many full-time workers had to stop working due to long COVID (including those with reduced hours)

It also suggested identifying workplace accommodations (like flexible schedules and allowing for remote work) to enable long COVID patients to work while conserving their strength, as well as taking an audit of the applications, approvals, and rejections for Social Security Disability Insurance among long COVID patients

These measures could help close the data gap about how many people have been forced out of the workforce due to long COVID and are unable as a result to fund retirement. 

Now what we need to do are the studies in long COVID patients

People are quickly wanting to forget about COVID, but it’s definitely a long-term public health issue.”