Home Health & Hospice Week

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is thinking about the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, and you should be too.

“To minimize any disruptions, including potential coverage losses, following the end of the PHE, HHS Secretary Becerra has committed to giving states and the health care community writ large 60 days’ notice before ending the PHE,” CMS officials say in an Aug. 18 blog post. “In the meantime, CMS encourages health care providers to prepare for the end of these flexibilities as soon as possible and to begin moving forward to reestablishing previous health and safety standards and billing practices,” says the blog entry titled “Creating a Roadmap for the End of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency.”

CMS plans to keep some of its COVID-era flexibilities after the PHE ends, while others will go or will need congres­sional actional to continue, the officials note. The waivers it will keep are included in provider type-specific fact sheets at www.cms.gov/blog/creating-roadmap-end-covid-19-public-health-emergency.

“With this information in hand, we expect that the health care system can begin taking prudent action to prepare to return to normal operations and to wind down those flexibilities that are no longer critical in nature,” the blog entry says.