August 27, 2020

This report from the Missouri Hospital Association is designed to help you stay abreast of recent developments related to COVID-19.

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Government Action
Clinical Guidance
Education
Hospital Operations
Legal & Regulatory Resources
PPE & Supply
Road to Reopening

The effective reproductive rate, represents the effective transmission rate for COVID-19. Ideally, the Re should be less than 1. Click the Re rate above or visit our website to view the weekly regional dashboards and learn more.

Source: Washington University Institute for Public Health

Government Action

CMS Releases Interim Rule Impacting Hospital CoPs

Staff Contact: Sarah Willson or Jessica Stultz

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued an interim final rule that, among other provisions, makes collecting and reporting COVID-19-data a Condition of Participation for hospitals and critical access hospitals that participate in Medicare.

The rule, which is effective upon publication in the Federal Register, will require hospitals to report daily data, including but not limited to elements such as the number of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 positive patients, intensive care unit beds occupied, and availability of supplies and equipment, such as ventilators and personal protective equipment. By making this data reporting a CoP, the penalty for a hospital’s noncompliance potentially may be termination from the Medicare program if appropriate corrective action is not taken.

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Clinical Guidance

CMS Issues Guidance For Nursing Homes And CLIA Laboratories

Staff Contact: Sarah Willson

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued two new guidance documents to State Survey Directors – QSO-20-37-CLIA, NH and QSO-20-38-NH – to immediately implement the requirements in a recently released interim rule. The guidance documents outline a host of new requirements for nursing facilities, some of which include COVID-19 reporting, infection control practices and Civil Monetary Penalties for noncompliance. In addition, CLIA laboratory compliance guidance is included.

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Education

AHA Publishes Podcast On The PPE Crisis

Staff Contact: Stacie Hollis

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital that hospitals and health systems are equipped with personal protective equipment to ensure the safety of their health care workers while providing care for patients. In a recent podcast from the American Hospital Association, Priya Bathija, AHA vice president of strategic initiatives, and Ali Raja, M.D., executive vice chair of the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Emergency Medicine and co-founder of GetUsPPE, discuss what AHA and GetUsPPE are doing to support hospitals in meeting their safety equipment needs.

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Hospital Operations

CMS Provides Additional Guidance On Medicare Inpatient COVID-19 Payment Differential

Staff Contact: Andrew Wheeler

Section 3710 of the CARES Act provides inpatient prospective payment system hospitals a payment increase of 20% for treating Medicare patients with COVID-19. Beginning Tuesday, Sept. 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is requiring hospitals to have a positive COVID-19 laboratory test documented in the patient’s medical record to bill and keep the payment differential. Tests performed within 14 days of the hospital admission and documented in the hospital’s medical record may be used to satisfy the requirement.

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CMS Provides Guidance About Reporting COVID-19 Relief Funding In The Medicare Cost Report

Staff Contact: Andrew Wheeler

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services updated the Medicare fee-for-service FAQs that include guidance on reporting Paycheck Protection Program, and Public Health and Social Services Relief payments. The guidance is provided in section V on pages 98 through 102. CMS provides instructions outlining which worksheets and lines to use to report the relief payments, instructs that the payments should not offset expenses, and provides guidance in reporting uninsured payments on worksheet S-10.

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Legal & Regulatory Resources

Hospital Employees Now Entitled To Leave Benefits Under The FFCRA

Staff Contact: Jane Drummond

MHA produced a fact sheet detailing hospitals’ new obligation to provide certain leave benefits to employees under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The change arises from a district court decision rejecting the U.S. Department of Labor’s definition of health care providers excluded from coverage under the Act.

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PPE & Supply

Nursing Homes To Receive N95 Respirators From Stockpile

Staff Contact: Stacie Hollis

The Defense Logistics Agency will begin on Friday distributing 1.5 million N95 respirators from the Strategic National Stockpile to about 3,330 nursing homes in the Medicare and Medicaid programs that have less than a three-day supply, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced. The agency will distribute the respirators based on the number of medical staff at each facility, as reported to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services database.

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Road to Reopening

Visitor Screening And Reintroduction Fact Sheet Available

Staff Contact: Dana Dahl

MHA compiled a fact sheet on visitor screening and reintroduction to allow members to quickly access visitor information, including data from a recent survey of Missouri members, two hospital practices on the topic and links to key national resources.

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