HHS will waive regulations in wake of national emergency declaration
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP on March 13 urged hospitals to activate their emergency preparedness plans and declared the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency, allowing HHS to give providers more flexibility to respond to a surge in patients.
The emergency declaration, in conjunction with the administration’s prior designation of COVID-19 as a public health emergency on Jan. 31, frees up to $50 billion in federal disaster relief funding, Trump said, and provides the HHS secretary with more authority to waive some Medicare, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program requirements.
Trump specifically mentioned several requirements hospitals had voiced concerns about:
• The three-day hospital stay requirement for skilled-nursing facility coverage
• Limits on numbers of beds and length of stay in critical-access hospitals
• Requirements that providers have a license in the state in which they are providing services if they have an equivalent license in another state
• HIPAA requirements that could be an obstacle to telemedicine accessibility
• Easing restrictions on where certain patients can be treated within a hospital
“We’ll remove or eliminate every obstacle necessary to deliver our people the care that they need, and that they’re entitled to. No resource will be spared, none whatsoever,” Trump said.
Activating emergency preparedness plans will allow hospitals to defer elective procedures in order to free up beds, Ambassador Dr. Deborah Birx, the Trump administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, noted during a March 13 news conference with the president.
The CMS will issue guidance instructing nursing homes to restrict all visitors and non-essential personnel, with exceptions including end-of-life situations.
The American Hospital Association, American Medical Association and American Nurses Association on March 12 wrote to Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the White House coronavirus response effort, asking for an emergency declaration.
Streamlining processes is “vitally important” to prevent the further spread of virus, AMA President Dr. Patrice Harris said.
Senate Democrats had also called for a national emergency declaration.
“Calling for a national emergency under the Stafford Act would free up lots of FEMA’s resources to help states and localities. Why he hasn’t done it is a mystery. We need him to do it, and do it now,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor on Thursday.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a former Florida governor and health system executive, said he told Trump on a recent phone call that he wanted an emergency declaration to provide funding for mobile COVID-19 testing sites to minimize exposure to healthcare workers in primary-care and hospital settings that may not have sufficient personal protective equipment.
“I have talked to a lot of hospitals inside or outside the state, and their main concern is how do we make sure they don’t lose their workers?” Scott said.●