blanket waivers

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued a Fact Sheet (Fact Sheet) providing guidance on the impact of the end of the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) on certain regulatory waivers, legislative changes, and flexibilities that have been established during the PHE. The government previously announced that the PHE will expire at the end of the day on May 11, 2023. CMS is providing this guidance as part of efforts to ease the transition for health care providers, patients, and other industry stakeholders away from pandemic-era policies and practices tied to PHE authorities. CMS emphasizes that many of the waivers and flexibilities are or will become permanent or extended, and others are intended to end on or soon following May 11, 2023.

Below please find a summary of key guidance provided by CMS in the Fact Sheet and in related CMS PHE guidance documents issued recently:Continue Reading CMS Issues Guidance for Providers on Waivers, Flexibilities and End of COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

On May 11, 2020 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced additional blanket waivers for hospitals and other facilities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to CMS, the new waivers “provide the flexibilities needed to take care of patients during the COVID-19 public health emergency.” The blanket waivers have a retroactive effective date of March 1, 2020 and do not require a waiver request or notice to CMS to apply.
Continue Reading CMS Releases Additional Blanket Waivers in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

Amidst the cavalcade of regulatory and policy changes from federal and state governments intended to help health care providers confront the COVID-19 pandemic, on April 21, 2020 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published “Explanatory Guidance” (Guidance) of the applicability of the blanket waivers of the federal Physician Self-Referral Law (PSR Law) CMS previously issued on March 30, 2020. See our analysis of the PSR Law blanket waivers here.
Continue Reading CMS Issues Explanatory Guidance of Blanket Physician Self-Referral (Stark) Law Waivers for COVID-19 in Response to Industry Feedback

On April 9, 2020 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) updated blanket waivers issued previously in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency. According to CMS, the new waivers “focus on reducing supervision and certification requirements so that practitioners can be hired quickly and perform work to the fullest extent of their licenses.” The blanket waivers have a retroactive effective date of March 1, 2020 and do not require a waiver request or notice to CMS to apply.
Continue Reading CMS Updates Blanket Waivers to Help Expand Health Care Workforce

On March 30th, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued blanket waivers (Blanket Waivers) of sanctions under the federal physician self-referral law (Stark Law) to relax regulatory requirements related to health care providers’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Blanket Waivers were issued under the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s authority in Section 1135 of the Social Security Act to ensure that (i) sufficient health care items and services are available to federal health care program beneficiaries, and (ii)  health care providers are reimbursed for providing such health care items and services while addressing the COVID-19 crisis. The Blanket Waivers apply to remuneration that is between an entity (as defined under the Stark Law) and (1) a physician, (2) the physician organization in whose shoes the physician stands (under 42 C.F.R. 411.354(c)) or (3) the physician’s immediate family member.
Continue Reading CMS Issues Blanket Waivers of Physician Self Referral (Stark) Law Penalties to Support COVID-19 Response Efforts