How The Public Health Emergency Helped Cut Regulatory Red Tape For Home Health Agencies

Home Health Care News | By Joyce Famakinwa
 
With the public health emergency (PHE) set to finally end on May 11, home health stakeholders are finding that the impact won’t be as disruptive as once feared.
 
This is because most of the biggest issues have already been addressed by Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
 
“Congress addressed the face-to-face encounter side of it, so we’re not going to be losing as much as we might have, if that hadn’t happened,” Bill Dombi, president of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC), told Home Health Care News. “For example, CMS early on in the pandemic made permanent the ability of home health agencies to use virtual visits, if authorized by the treating physician or treating practitioner.”
 
This means that the required face-to-face encounter for home health services can take place through telehealth.
 
Another factor that will potentially lessen the negative impact of the PHE ending is the Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver — which was originally tied to the PHE — getting an extension through the omnibus spending bill, Moving Health Home Founder Krista Drobac told HHCN.
 
“We were successful in decoupling the waiver related to acute care in the home from the PHE at the end of last year when we secured the two-year extension,” she said. “Now we’re focused on educating Congress about the other barriers that didn’t get waived during the PHE but are necessary for providing patients more options in the home.”
 
Drobac noted that Moving Health Home is pushing for a bill that will potentially be introduced in the House.
 
“It will give patients the options for care in the home,” she said. “There’s a lot of pieces that are still missing related to home infusion, home dialysis, home-based primary care, home-based imaging, home-based labs and even Medicare personal care services. We’ve taken a look across the full spectrum of all the things that need to change in order for a patient to truly be able to stay home in a variety of different cases, so we’ll be introducing legislation there.”
 
Still, there are some concerns providers should keep their eye on with the PHE coming to an end in the spring.

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Read the Statment of Administration Policy related to theend of the COVID19 Public Health Emergency and National Emergency