On March 9, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized two rules aimed to promote patient access to their health data. One rule, the Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule, was issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and can be accessed here. The…
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) recently issued recommendations to re-open certain healthcare facilities that have not been heavily impacted by COVID-19 to provide essential non-COVID-19-related care to patients without COVID-19 symptoms. By way of background, on March 18, 2020, CMS issued recommendations to postpone non-essential elective surgeries…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for certain sterilization systems that could potentially decontaminate up to 4 million N95 respirators or N95-equivalent respirators daily. By way of background, the surge of patients in healthcare facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic has…
On April 28, 2020, the American Medical Association (AMA) released a series of guidance related to ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic. The AMA released this guidance in response to the ethical challenges many healthcare professionals and organizations are facing caused by the burden COVID-19 is placing on the healthcare industry…
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently updated its guidance regarding COVID-19 and its impact on certain equal employment opportunity laws. The EEOC guidance consists of numerous technical assistance questions and answers pertaining to COVID-19. The update included a question asking whether an employer may administer a COVID-19 test…
On April 26, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that its suspending its Advance Payment Program to Part B Suppliers, effective immediately. Additionally, CMS announced that it is reevaluating the amounts to be paid out under the Accelerated Payment Program. To date, CMS has paid out…
On April 21, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a Notification of Enforcement Discretion (the “Notification”) regarding the provision of telehealth services during the COVID-19 public health emergency in the Federal Register. The Notification codifies guidance previously issued by the HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR)…
HHS will soon distribute a second tranche of $20 billion in non-targeted Provider Relief Funds as part of the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund (“PHSSEF”) appropriation. Under the CARES Act, HHS received a $100 billion appropriation to be spent to assist providers that lost revenues or incurred additional…
As the number of COVID-19 cases starts to decline, a number of facilities are preparing to resume elective surgical care. The recently issued guidelines outlined below were created by the American College of Surgeons (ACOS) to help facilities safely plan for resumption of elective surgery. There are 10 distinct issues…
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it will distribute $100 billion to healthcare providers, including hospitals, battling the COVID-19 pandemic. HHS will be allocating portions of this $100 billion to different areas of the healthcare arena. Below provides an overview of these allocations. GENERAL ALLOCATIONS Half…