Home Health & Hospice Week

You have until Nov. 15 to meet the requirements of Medicare’s Emergency Preparedness final rule issued in the Federal Register — including the training and testing requirements, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services stresses in a recent survey & certification memo.

Question: “Many providers and suppliers have asked whether they will be expected to have completed the ‘exercises’ per the training and testing requirements in each standard (d) of the Final Rule, by the implementation date,” CMS notes in memo S&C 17-21-ALL.

Answer: “Because the Final Rule has an implementation date of November 15, 2017, one year following the effective date, providers and suppliers are expected to meet the requirements of the training and testing program by the implementation date,” CMS confirms. “In order to meet these requirements, we strongly encourage providers and suppliers to seek out and to participate in a fullscale, community-based exercise with their local and/or state emergency agencies and health care coalitions and to have completed a tabletop exercise by the implementation date.”

Don’t wait: “Some providers and suppliers are waiting for the release of the interpretive guidance to begin planning these exercises, but that is not necessary nor is it advised,” CMS says. “Providers and suppliers that are found to have not completed these exercises, or any other requirements of the Final Rule upon their survey, will be cited for non-compliance.”

See the survey & cert memo, which contains resources for finding such exercises, at www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/Downloads/Survey-and-Cert-Letter-17-21.pdf.