“I have heart disease, and I am scared. For years, doctor’s visits and medication have kept me alive. However, now I am afraid if I go to the doctor, I will catch coronavirus and die. If I don’t go, my heart disease could kill me.” I have had similar conversations with seriously ill Americans nationwide […]
Major metropolitan areas such as New York, Seattle, and Detroit have dominated news of the COVID-19 outbreak, but rural hospitals and health care systems must also prepare for a surge of coronavirus patients. Surgeons at one rural health care system on both sides of the New York-Pennsylvania border have reported on their preparedness response plan […]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) took “unprecedented” action to reduce red tape for home health care agencies and other Medicare providers on Monday. Although the changes are, in theory, temporary, many home health stakeholders welcomed the newfound flexibility aimed at the COVID-19 pandemic. Some, however, were left scratching their heads, confused […]
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid will further expand Medicare coverage of telehealth services and care as one of several moves the agency is making to increase access to health care amid the COVID-19 pandemic. President Donald Trump initially announced increased Medicare reimbursements for beneficiaries seeking telehealth services in a national emergency address March 13. Since then, […]
On March 30, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the enactment of numerous temporary regulatory waivers and new rules intended to enable health care providers to better respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and the anticipated surge of patients. The waivers described in this QuickStudy focus upon increasing hospitals’ capacity and capabilities […]
Reimbursement under Medicare In response to COVID-19, CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) has broadened access to Medicare telehealth services on a temporary and emergency basis for the duration of the Public Health Emergency. Under Section 1135 of the Social Security Act’s waiver authority and the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, Medicare […]
AS EVERYONE STRUGGLES through the coronavirus pandemic, unfamiliar terms are everywhere. Phrases such as social distancing, also now referred to as physical distancing, as well as droplet transmission and personal protective equipment are becoming part of the vernacular – but what do they really mean? Here’s a glossary of coronavirus-related terminology. Community spread. Community spread of the coronavirus means people living […]
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made another big step to expand telehealth services to Medicare members, announcing it will now cover over 80 new services. The government health plan will pay for some remote monitoring services for conditions related to the coronavirus — like initial hospital care — as well as many unrelated to […]
Major physician groups said the decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to start paying physicians for patient visits that take place by telephone will help physician practices stay open by providing them with needed revenue. Among a series of regulatory changes announced by CMS Monday night in reaction to the coronavirus pandemic was the […]
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act, recently passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump, provides a number of important expansions of telehealth coverage during the public health emergency affecting those in rural areas and home health care patients and establishes significant funding for enhancement of telehealth services by updating […]
On March 27th, Congress passed and the President signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the CARES Act). On both the federal and state levels we have seen efforts to support social distancing in the health care sector by increasing the use of telehealth. On the federal side, we have seen the continued relaxation of […]
The Academy’s push to give family physicians broad latitude to use telehealth in the fight against COVID-19 delivered a substantial win March 30, when CMS announced plans to temporarily relax a number of key regulations and backdate implementation to March 1. The move, which includes other measures to relieve administrative burden and reinforce clinician staffing, […]
The World Health Organization’s qualification of coronavirus as a pandemic is already changing the way that cultures and industries across the globe operate. The healthcare industry is at the forefront of this crisis and has been forced to reevaluate its traditional resistance to the telehealth movement. With the reproductive number, or the number of secondary […]
On March 27, 2020, Congress passed, and President Trump signed, the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act)stimulus package aimed at addressing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Pursuant to new authority granted under the CARES Act, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on March 30 released additional waivers further relaxing Medicare […]
The coronavirus is getting us comfortable with the virtual doctor’s appointment, and that’s going to ultimately change the entire conversation about the cost of healthcare. The U.S. healthcare system is expensive and difficult to “fix” for a lot of well-documented reasons, from the oddity of health insurance as a third-party intermediary to a business model that […]