Home Health & Hospice Week

You should already be engaging in your wind-down process, experts say.

The clock is ticking down to the last days of the COVID-19 public health emergency — will you be ready?

Reminder: On Jan. 30, the White House released a statement setting the PHE’s end date on May 11 (see HHHW by AAPC, Vol. XXXII, No. 5).

Now the Department of Health & Human Services has sent state governors a letter announcing another COVID-19 PHE renewal, effective Feb. 11.

Thanks in part to “the largest adult vaccination program in U.S. history … since the peak of the Omicron surge at the end of January 2022 Daily COVID-19 reported cases are down 92 percent; COVID-19 deaths have declined by over 80 percent, and new COVID-19 hospitalizations are down nearly 80 percent,” HHS celebrates.

HHS “is planning for this to be the final renewal and for the COVID-19 PHE to end on May 11, 2023,” reiterates HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in the Feb. 9 letter. “Rather than 60 days’ notice, I am providing 90 days’ notice before the COVID-19 PHE ends to give you and your communities ample time to transition.”

The renewal was accompanied by a fact sheet titled the “COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Transition Roadmap.”

“Addressing COVID-19 remains a significant public health priority for the administration, and over the next few months, we will transition our COVID-19 policies, as well as the current flexibilities enabled by the COVID-19 emergency declarations, into improving standards of care for patients,” HHS explains in the fact sheet. Additionally, HHS offers a quick review of what flexibilities won’t be affected, how it is continuing to monitor policies and whether to make them permanent, and what will ultimately change at the federal healthcare level when the PHE ends.

For example: “Many of the Medicaid waivers and flexibilities, including those that support home and community-based services, are available for states to continue beyond the PHE, if they choose to do so,” HHS points out in the Roadmap fact sheet. “States have used COVID-19 PHE-related flexibilities to increase the number of individuals served under a waiver, expand provider qualifications, and other flexibilities.”

Expect Medicare Guidance To Continue To Evolve

On Feb. 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services updated its “CMS Flexibilities to Fight COVID-19” fact sheets that are specific to each provider type.

“It is important to note that CMS will be making additional updates” to the fact sheets, says the National Association for Home Care & Hospice in its member newsletter.

“In the coming days, [CMS] will also provide additional information, including about the waivers many states and health systems have adopted and how they will be impacted by the end of the COVID-19 PHE,” Becerra says in the HHS letter.

Do this: “Please begin planning now for … waivers to end, including multiple ones regarding Home Health Aide supervision,” urges Melinda Gaboury with Healthcare Provider Solutions in her “Monday Minute with Melinda” vlog. “Those are going to end on May 11 and you will go back to the original requirements for Home Health Aide supervision, annual training, and so on,” Gaboury stresses. (For a rundown of which flexibilities are here to stay and which will go, how to prepare for the PHE end, and more, see HHHW by AAPC, Vol. XXIII, No. 5).

Note: The provider- and program-specific fact sheets from CMS are at www.cms.gov/coronavirus-waivers and the HHS roadmap is at www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/02/09/fact-sheet-covid-19-public-health-emergency-transition-roadmap.html.