The May 11 expiration of the federal public health emergency declaration will bring changes to federal healthcare programs, with various regulatory flexibilities expiring immediately or within a short period of time. Many policy interventions to combat COVID-19 will continue, however, leaving senior living providers to navigate the unwinding of pandemic-era rules and sometimes conflicting state-level guidelines. […]
The end of the COVID-19 public health emergency on May 11 has created dizzying changes for Medicare beneficiaries. Whether Medicare will or won’t cover certain health care costs may now depend on whether you are in Traditional Medicare or a private insurer’s Medicare Advantage plan, want remote monitoring for a chronic condition, and need rehab […]
Telehealth Access for America, an AHA-supported campaign to protect patient access to critical telehealth services, urged Congress to make permanent certain Medicare telehealth flexibilities granted during the COVID-19 public health emergency and extended through 2024 by the Consolidated Appropriations Act. “This temporary extension was welcomed news for patients and providers alike, but remains just that – a […]
The COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) ends today, creating a shift in how physicians, patients, and policy makers deal with the pandemic. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has differentiated between rules and practices that will change and some that will remain in place in the post-pandemic world. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra claimed credit […]
The big question for healthcare organizations that have expanded their telehealth services since the beginning of the pandemic has been what will happen when the public health emergency ends. This uncertainty is what’s known as the “telehealth cliff.” By authority granted under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provided flexibility for […]
May 11, 2023 – Today marks the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE), bringing changes to telehealth flexibilities enacted amid the pandemic. On May 11, the Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) released a factsheet detailing telehealth-related regulations that will and will not change. For instance, Congress has extended certain telehealth flexibilities within the Medicare program […]
As the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS or the Department) continues the process of transitioning away from the policies enabled by the COVID-19 emergency declarations, the Department would like to provide clarity regarding the future of federal flexibilities related to telehealth and tele prescribing to ensure that patients may continue to access and […]
Based on current COVID-19 trends, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is planning for the federal Public Health Emergency (PHE) for COVID-19, declared under Section 319 of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act, to expire at the end of the day on May 11, 2023. Since HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s February 9, 2023, letter […]
May 02, 2023 – A newly released federal toolkit aims to help healthcare stakeholders analyze their telehealth claims data to assess program integrity risks. Released last week by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the toolkit is based on the methodology developed for a report published last September that assessed providers who […]
May 2, 2023 – The COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant increase in the use of telehealth services across the United States, a shift driven in part by the Public Health Emergency (PHE), allowing health care providers to offer telehealth services to a broader range of patients. On Jan. 30, 2023, the Biden administration announced […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced its plan to end the Federal Public Health Emergency (PHE) for COVID-19 on May 11, 2023. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency declarations, legislation, and regulatory waivers across government agencies, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), allowed for flexibility in the delivery of […]
HHS OIG has said that during 2020, the use of telehealth services increased dramatically, with Medicare beneficiaries using 88 times more telehealth services in that year than the year prior. Additionally, more than 40% of Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services that year. The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General […]
COVID-19 significantly affected home-based care providers, such as home health agencies (HHAs) and hospices, whose staff had to overcome both physical and mental burdens of going into patients’ homes to deliver care, especially in the days before a COVID-19 vaccine. While these providers benefitted from a number of Medicare program regulatory flexibilities during the public […]
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues across the United States, states, payers, and providers are looking for ways to expand access to telehealth services. Telehealth is an essential tool in ensuring patients are able to access the healthcare services they need in as safe a manner as possible. In order to provide our clients with quick […]
WHAT IS THE TOOLKIT? This toolkit provides detailed information on methods to analyze telehealth claims to identify program integrity risks associated with telehealth services. It is based on the methodology that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) developed for the report Medicare Telehealth Services During the First Year of the Pandemic: Program Integrity Risks (OEI-02-20-00720), which identified […]
