Lacking notice, hospitals can expect PHE to extend beyond January 11
The deadline for HHS to give providers a 60-day notice was Friday.
Photo: Violeta Stoimenova/Getty Images
The public health emergency will be extended past its current deadline of January 11, if the Department of Health and Human Services follows its promise to give providers and other stakeholders a 60-day notice before the end of the PHE. That deadline was Friday.
Should HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra declare a public health emergency for the 12th time, the new deadline would be in April.
While HHS has released no formal statement, Reuters reported that two Biden administration officials said the public health emergency is being kept in place to allow millions of Americans to still receive free tests, vaccines and treatments for COVID-19.
WHY THIS MATTERS
The PHE keeps waivers and policies in place for Medicaid coverage, telehealth coverage, and add-on payments to hospitals and physicians. Telehealth waivers will expire 151 days after the end of PHE.
Hospitals are seeing an influx of children suffering from the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and are bracing for a bad flu season, as well as continued COVID-19 cases. Extensions are needed until at least April to have time to lobby state legislatures to enrich their Medicaid pay rates, according to McKnights Long-Term Care News. The hope is that many of the states that have had Medicaid add-ons would convert those into the base Medicaid rates.
An estimated 15 million people could lose Medicaid coverage when the COVID-19 public health emergency ends and with it the continuous-enrollment requirement.
THE LARGER TREND
On October 13, Becerra extended the public health emergency for the 11th time since the declaration was first made in January 2020.
The current extension ends on January 11, 2023, Former HHS Secretary Alex Azar issued the first declaration on January 31, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was just beginning to ramp up in the United States.
Azar renewed the PHE on April 21, 2020; July 23, 2020; October 2, 2020; and January 7, 2021. Becerra continued those renewals on April 15, 2021; July 19, 2021; and October 15, 2021; and this year on January 14, April 12 and July 15.
Twitter: @SusanJMorse
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org
