Cutbacks Force Long-COVID Clinic Closures: What Now?

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The closure of a North Carolina long-COVID clinic underscores the precarious outlook facing other COVID rehabilitation facilities across the US and elsewhere. Many clinics are still experiencing waitlists and backlogs, doctors say, even as burned-out staff grapple with worries over the future of its operations.

Since 2021, the UNC COVID Recovery Clinic served thousands of patients struggling with post-COVID symptoms. But the loss of multiple funding sources forced it to shutter its doors for good this summer. 

Directors of other long-COVID clinics say they may be next, with federal officials drastically cutting funding for health programs, including long COVID.

“Clinics around the country are closing or slowing down for sure,” according to Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, MD, who directs the COVID Recovery Clinic at UT Health San Antonio. In addition to the UNC clinic closure, she said a clinic affiliated with another Texas school is not funded and struggling. She noted that patients from that clinic were trying to get into the San Antonio facility, which already has a long waitlist. Read the full story here.