Month: December 2020

Webinar: Avoiding Lost Revenue and Penalties by Ensuring Full Compliance with Hospital Price Transparency

Date: December 8, 2020

Time: 2:00 PM CT

REGISTER

Per a recent ruling, as of January 1, 2021, every hospital must make viewable in a searchable, machine-readable format, 300 “standard charges for all items and services” for their patient consumers. If not in compliance, you could be facing:

  • A monetary penalty of $300 a day per facility.
  • Potential denial of Medicare Payments.
  • Possible damage to reputation by being listed publicly, as con-compliant by CMS.
  • Losing business to competitor hospitals that have complied with the mandate.

This session will explain the details of the current rules and offer easily implementable strategies and tactics to make sure that your organization is in compliance. Specifically, we will examine:

  • The Regulatory Law – What is it, what is required for compliance, what is the consequence of non-compliance?
  • How will this impact your hospital’s relationship with the community you serve?
  • Financial impact to your organization.

Trump Administration Finalizes Policies to Give Medicare Beneficiaries More Choices around Surgery

December 3, 2020

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is finalizing policy changes that will give Medicare patients and their doctors greater choices to get care at a lower cost in an outpatient setting. The Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) final rules will increase value for Medicare beneficiaries and reflect the agency’s efforts to transform the healthcare delivery system through competition and innovation. These changes implement the Trump Administration’s Executive Order on Protecting and Improving Medicare for Our Nation’s Seniors, and will take effect on January 1, 2021.

Full press release

Federal Office of Rural Health Policy Announcements

December 3, 2020

Updated Provider Relief Funds FAQs. In support of the national response to COVID-19, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is distributing $175 billion from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act Provider Relief Fund (PRF) to hospitals and healthcare providers. The PRF Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) provide guidance to recipients regarding terms and conditions, attestation, reporting and auditing requirements, and the general and targeted distributions. On November 18, new questions were added under the headings Use of Funds and Miscellaneous.

Indian Health Service (IHS) Pandemic Vaccine Plan. The plan details how the IHS health care system will prepare for and operationalize a vaccine when it becomes available. It also provides important guidance for all IHS federal tribal health programs and urban Indian organizations that choose to receive COVID-19 vaccine coordinated through IHS.

HHS Request for Information on Redundant, Overlapping, or Inconsistent Regulations – December 21. On November 27, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking input from the public to improve existing regulations, and eliminate unnecessary or duplicative regulations, through future exercise of rulemaking authority. As this RFI seeks input on regulations issued by any HHS office or agency, those responding may consider addressing regulatory issues of particular interest to rural health.

HHS Request for Information on Best Practices in Response to COVID-19 – December 24. There are a number of innovative programs, policies, and best practices that prevent and mitigate the consequences of COVID–19 in urban and rural areas, while also preserving access to healthcare services for non-COVID-19 medical conditions. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requests information on these innovative approaches and best practices in health care for both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 conditions to inform and improve HHS priorities and programs. 

Comments Requested: Paperwork Reduction for the FCC – December 24. As part of its Measuring Broadband America Program, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeks input from the public on the types of information that should be collected to determine the speed and performance of broadband connections. Specifically, the FCC would like to receive comments on how they might “further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees.” Currently, there are software-based tools and online tools that can test consumers’ broadband connections. However, these tools track speeds experienced by consumers, rather than speeds delivered directly to a consumer by an internet service provider. The Measuring Broadband America Program will focus on the broadband performance delivered. 

Funding Opportunity: Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET) Program for Professionals

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2021 for the Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET) Program for Professionals.

The purpose of this program is to develop and expand experiential training opportunities to improve the distribution and supply of the behavioral health workforce. The Program emphasizes relationships with community-based partners to increase access to quality behavioral health services for populations across the lifespan in high need and high demand areas. A special focus is placed on the knowledge and understanding of children, adolescents, and transitional-aged youth at risk for behavioral health disorders.

Eligible applicants include accredited:

  • Institutions of higher education or professional training programs that focus on mental health
  • Doctoral, internship, and postdoctoral programs of health service psychology
  • Master’s and doctoral degree programs of social work

HRSA expects approximately $44.2 million to be available in FY 2021 to fund 92 grantees.

For a complete list of funding opportunities, visit the HRSA website.

Technical Assistance

COVID-19 Funding Sources Impacting Rural Providers Guide

The Technical Assistance and Services Center (TASC), in coordination with the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP), are pleased to provide another update of the COVID-19 Funding Sources Impacting Rural Providers guide. This funding resource is intended to support rural health care providers, along with their state and local partners, navigate the availability of federal funds to support the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic response and recovery efforts. This guide is updated regularly to capture changes in funding sources.

Seven tables, or matrices, are provided for quick reference at the beginning of this resource. The tables can be used to check eligibility of participation in funding sources by provider types: rural prospective payment system (PPS) and critical access hospitals (CAH), rural health clinics (RHC), federally qualified health centers (FQHC), long-term care (LTC) or skilled nursing facilities (SNF), tribal facilities, and emergency medical services (EMS). The tables also provide an at-a-glance view for each provider type sharing the different types of funds that may be accessed from various funding sources dependent on their participation eligibility. Each funding source is described in its own section of this resource with an executive summary followed by further detail on the use of funds, reporting requirements, hyperlinks to the legislation and detailed information.

One of the main updates for this version is the addition of the RHC COVID-19 Testing Program found on Page 57.

The guide can be found in COVID-19 Collection located on The National Rural Health Resource Center’s website. This collection consists of trusted and reliable resources, such as the COVID-19 Funding Sources Impacting Rural Providers Guide, along with standing links to additional organizations’ COVID-19 resources, FAQs, webinars, tools, and trainings. The Center aims to help direct the most up-to-date and relevant tools and resources to rural hospitals, clinics, and their communities. This Collection will be updated regularly to help assist with the abundance of circulating information relating to COVID-19.

Call for Presentations: 2021 Family Medicine Update

University of Missouri School of Medicine is accepting applications to speak at the 2021 virtual conference from November 20 through December 23, 2020. Applicants will be notified of acceptance by January 15, 2021. Accepted speaker’s registration fees will be waived. Proposals are for 40-minute virtual sessions. This year’s conference theme is “Adaptation” and will take place in two afternoon sessions: Topics are at the discretion of the speaker, but should be relevant to clinical primary care providers. In addition to general adult care topics, speakers are encouraged to consider discussion of diagnostic and therapeutic considerations in special populations (such as generic, obstetric, and pediatric populations) when appropriate. Proposals for duplicate or similar topics may be asked to resubmit.  

Click to view full Call for Presentations.