Policy Updates

Coronavirus Update for Monday, October 26

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 3:45 p.m. on Monday, October 26. Provider Relief Fund: Webcast on Phase 3 General Distribution Applications for the Provider Relief Fund Phase 3 general distribution are now being accepted by HHS. HHS will hold a webcast on Monday, November 2 at 3:00 p.m. (eastern) for interested parties. Go here to register for the webcast and to submit questions. Providers considering applying for Phase 3 general distribution funds that did not view the previous webcast should participate in this one in anticipation of the November 6 application deadline. [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-27T06:00:30-04:00October 27, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|

GAO Calls for More Work Scrutinizing Hospitals’ Tax-Exempt Status

The question of whether non-profit hospitals are doing enough to justify their tax-exempt status is the focus of a new Government Accountability Office study on the manner in which the Internal Revenue Service evaluates hospitals’ tax exemption. According to the study, the IRS struggles with one of the three primary criteria for non-profit hospitals’ tax-exempt status outlined in the Affordable Care Act (PPACA): whether the community benefit such hospitals provide justifies their tax exemption. The GAO review observed that While PPACA established requirements to better ensure hospitals are serving their communities, the law is unclear about what community benefit activities [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-23T06:00:31-04:00October 23, 2020|hospitals|

Coronavirus Update for Thursday, October 22

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 22. Provider Relief Fund HHS has announced that it is updating its most recent Provider Relief Fund reporting instructions to broaden how past fund recipients may use those funds. See that announcement here. In September HHS announced changes in instructions that had originally been issued in June, but with this announcement it appears the agency is restoring its June instructions. In making this decision, HHS wrote that As providers, provider organizations, and members of Congress familiarized themselves with the reporting requirements, HHS [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-23T06:00:16-04:00October 23, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|

HHS Webinar Thursday

The Department of Health and Human Services will hold a webinar on Thursday, October 22 at 1:00 (eastern) about the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ recent guidance explaining how it will implement an interim final rule that makes the collection and reporting of COVID-19 data a condition of participation in Medicare for hospitals. On August 24 CMS published an interim final rule establishing new requirements in the hospital conditions of participation in Medicare and on October 6 HHS published the updated document “COVID-19 Guidance for Hospital Reporting and FAQs For Hospitals, Hospital Laboratory, and Acute Care Facility Reporting.” Among [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-22T06:00:34-04:00October 22, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19, Medicare, Medicare regulations|

Coronavirus Update for Tuesday, October 20

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 20. Provider Relief Fund HHS has updated its Provider Relief Fund FAQ with a new question that appears on page 46 and is marked “Added 10/15/2020.” The new question is “An organization has prescription sales as part of its revenue. Can these sales be captured in the data submitted as a part of revenue from patient care?” The answer is “Generally no, prescriptions sale revenue may not be captured as part of revenue from patient care. Only patient care revenues from providing [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-21T06:33:59-04:00October 21, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|

Coronvirus Update for Tuesday, October 20

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 20. Provider Relief Fund HHS has updated its Provider Relief Fund FAQ with a new question that appears on page 46 and is marked “Added 10/15/2020.” The new question is “An organization has prescription sales as part of its revenue. Can these sales be captured in the data submitted as a part of revenue from patient care?” The answer is “Generally no, prescriptions sale revenue may not be captured as part of revenue from patient care. Only patient care revenues from providing [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-21T06:00:32-04:00October 21, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|

States Expect Medicaid Enrollment, Spending to Rise in FY 2021

States expect to see their Medicaid enrollment and spending rise in FY 2021, driven by increases in unemployment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and maintenance-of-effort requirements in legislation enacted earlier this year. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey of state Medicaid directors found that those officials expect their Medicaid enrollment to rise 8.2 percent in FY 2021 and their Medicaid spending to increase 8.4 percent that same year. Most states expect the 6.2 percentage point increase in federal Medicaid matching funds that was included in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed this March, to expire at the end of 2020. [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-21T06:00:12-04:00October 21, 2020|Medicaid|

Feds Penalizing Wrong Hospitals for Readmissions, Study Finds

Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program often penalizes the wrong hospitals for excessive readmissions. Or so concludes a new study published in the journal JAMA Cardiology. According to the study, …the percentage of hospitals that were incorrectly penalized was 10.1% for acute myocardial infarction, 10.9% for heart failure, and 12.3 percent for pneumonia. The study also found that the readmissions reduction program is failing to penalize some hospitals that do deserve penalties based on the program’s standards, writing that …in fiscal year 2019, the percentage of hospitals that should have been penalized by the program, but were not, was 20.9% for [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-20T06:00:30-04:00October 20, 2020|Medicare, Medicare reimbursement policy|

Number of Uninsured Children Rising

The number of uninsured children in the U.S. is rising. Since 2016, the number of uninsured children has risen by approximately 726,000 as the uninsured rate among children rose from 4.7 percent to 5.7 percent in 2019. An increase of 320,000 children between 2018 and 2019 was the largest such increase in more than a decade. Texas accounts for one-third of the four-year increase, or about 243,000 newly uninsured children, with Florida second with 55,000 newly uninsured children. Learn more about the increase in the number of uninsured children in recent years and why it occurred in the report “Children’s [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-19T06:00:16-04:00October 19, 2020|Uncategorized|

Coronavirus Update for Thursday, October 15

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 15. Provider Relief Fund Yesterday HHS held a webinar to provide more detailed information to health care providers about its planned $20 billion CARES Act Provider Relief Fund Phase 3 general distribution. It used this toolkit during the webinar. The deadline for applying for a Phase 3 general distribution is November 6. During the webinar, providers that have received Provider Relief Fund general distributions in the past were advised that they need to submit an entirely new application to participate in Phase [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-16T06:00:45-04:00October 16, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|