COVID-19

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 10. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services CMS has updated its FAQs for Medicare fee-for-service billing with 20 new or updated questions, all marked “12/8/2020,” that address payments for monoclonal antibody treatments and vaccines, including billing and payments for skilled nursing facilities and non-excepted off-campus provider-based departments; requirements for providing antibodies through infusion therapy; and “hospital without walls” flexibilities.  Find the new and updated questions between pages 122 and 135. CMS has posted an infographic on coverage of monoclonal antibody products to treat [...]

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal governments as of 2:45 p.m. on Friday, December 4. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services CMS has updated its FAQs on Medicare fee-for-service billing with 14 new questions that address administration and billing for monoclonal antibody therapy.  The new questions can be found on pages 33-34, p. 34, pp. 120-121, p. 121, pp. 121-124, pp. 124-125, p. 125 (four questions), p. 126, pp. 126-127, p. 127, and pp. 127-128. CMS covers much the same ground in an updated version of its document “Medicare Monoclonal Antibody COVID-19 Infusion Program Instruction.” CMS [...]

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 2:45 p.m. on Wednesday, December 2. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services CMS has announced the introduction of two new Medicare condition codes that will take effect for claims received on or after February 1, 2021:  one to enable providers to report when a service is provided as part of Expanded Access approval and another to enable providers to report when the service is provided as part of an Emergency Use Authorization.  Find an article about the new codes here in MLN Matters, CMS’s online publication. CMS [...]

The development of new therapeutics in recent months has not yet translated into a reduced death rate for patients with COVID-19. In the spring the death rate was five to six percent, a rate attributed to limited testing.  Since testing became more widely available during the summer, however, the death rate has fallen to approximately 1.7 percent but has remained at that level despite the introduction of new ways to treat COVID-19. Learn more about the new treatments, their impact on care, and the prospects for their eventual impact on COVID-19 death rates in the Washington Post article “Coronavirus survival [...]