Late Monday on March 30, CMS made sweeping changes to just about every facet of health care on the Federal level from hospitals to ambulatory surgery centers to nursing homes and ambulances.
Although a lot of attention has been focused on the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) loan programs under the CARES Act, there are many other provisions favorable to health care providers to alleviate the financial distress caused by COVID-19. The below identifies some of those provisions.
This update follows our previous updates regarding COVID-19 on March 12 and March 18. Needless to say, both federal and state governments have taken significant steps since March 18. As detailed below, besides the stimulus bill that is currently pending, there has been additional guidance issued on the expansion of telemedicine and the relaxation of the HIPAA rules.
Some good news for health care providers. Just yesterday, the Governor signed into a law a bill that relaxes the telemedicine rules in New Jersey that track some of the Federal relaxed rule. Please review Bill 3860.
This update is a follow-up to our previous update on COVID-19 and the steps that the federal government has taken to combat the virus. Most critically, CMS has significantly expanded telemedicine services to Medicare beneficiaries. For example, CMS has waived the requirement that a physician must have a previous relationship with the patient before providing some services, such as telehealth visits.
Fifth Circuit says Texas Hospital Cannot Challenge Medicare Payments Based on Wrong Information
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently ruled that Texas’ Hendrick Medical Center may not challenge Medicare payments calculated based on wrong information, when it failed to follow administrative rules for correcting the data before the federal agency set the payment rate.
In light of the impact of the Coronavirus (“COVID-19”), The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") has provided numerous and diverse responses beyond the travel restrictions that have been imposed, including the issuing of a memo on February 6, 2020 to health care facilities to take critical steps to prepare for and address the virus, issuing guidance to a variety of providers on infection control throughout this period, obtaining commitments from insurance companies to waive co-payments and coinsurance obligations, creating new billing codes, and expanding telemedicine.
When New Jersey enacted the Telemedicine Act, N.J.S.A. 45:1-62 et al. (the “Act”), many physicians celebrated. Although telemedicine is a good thing for the health care industry, it is not the free-for-all that many physicians believe. For example, the Act requires that the physician be licensed in the state in which the patient is located. Many telemedicine statutes implemented by other states are similar to the Act.
Medicare Program: Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model Three-Year Extension and Changes to Episode Definition and Pricing
85 FR 10516: On February 24, 2020, CMS proposed a rule intended to revise certain aspects of the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model, which was CMS’s first mandatory bundled payment initiative, which began on April 1, 2016 and is set to expire on December 31, 2020. Specifically, the proposed rule now incorporates the episode of care definition, the target price calculation, the reconciliation process, the beneficiary notice requirements and the appeals process.
85 FR 7874 – Interim Final Rule - The CDC issued this interim final rule to amend its Foreign Quarantine regulations, to enable CDC to require airlines to collect, and provide to CDC, certain data regarding passengers and crew arriving from foreign countries for the purposes of health education, treatment, prophylaxis, or other appropriate public health interventions, including travel restrictions. Although the rule was not published until February 12, 2020, it became effective on February 7, 2020.