Medicare & Medicaid
Some of the telehealth provisions extended on a temporary basis will be made permanent, CMS Administrator Seema Verma says.
CMS said it wanted to finalize some proposed policies before the MA and Part D bid deadlines on June 1 for the 2021 plan year.
Better interoperability between devices could result in the "silent ICU" in which alarms are not constantly going off by a patient's bed.
CMS Administrator Seema Verma gave no timetable, but the agency said reopening would only happen in phase three.
Proposed changes to the inpatient prospective payment system would speed approval of new technology add-on payments for antimicrobials.
Providers need time to prepare to implement the final rule, scheduled to go in effect Jan. 1, 2021, at a time when they are facing the coronavirus pandemic and its resulting financial issues.
Insurers get a one-week extension to finalize 2021 exchange plan applications, giving them time to analyze the effect of COVID-19 in setting premiums.
$12 billion is going to 395 hospitals that provided inpatient care for 100 or more COVID-19 patients.
The interim rule is extending the mitigation of shared losses back to January 2020.
The rules move the healthcare system from an environment built by providers and payers to one in which patients are in control, Rucker says.