Public health emergency to end on May 11

Photo: Anton Petrus/Getty Images

The COVID-19 public health emergency is ending on Thursday, May 11, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

The announcement gives providers more than their promised 60-day notice of the end of the PHE and the termination of many of the waivers the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put in place to ease restrictions on hospitals and other providers during the public health emergency.

The current PHE was set to expire on April 11. The original national emergency that was declared on March 13, 2020, was set to expire on March 1, the OMB said.

At present, the Biden administration's plan is to extend the national emergency declaration and the PHE to May 11, and then end both emergencies on that date. 

The OMB also announced on Monday that H.R. 497, which it opposes, would end the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare providers.

WHY THIS MATTERS

The PHE announcement should come as no surprise, since most expected the current extension to April 11 would be the last. To ease the transition, Congress, through the omnibus bill passed in December, put into place two-year extensions for telehealth and hospital-at-home waivers.

Also, the bill separated Medicaid's continuous enrollment requirement from the end of the PHE by allowing states to begin the redetermination process on April 1. 

CMS this week announced a special enrollment period for Affordable Care Act coverage for consumers who no longer qualify for Medicaid. Up to 18 million people were projected to be at risk for becoming uninsured. The special enrollment period begins on March 31 to allow for a seamless transition to marketplace coverage, CMS said.

But the OMB said on Monday that ending the emergency declarations in the manner contemplated by proposed legislation H.R. 382 and H.J. Res. 7 would impact the health system and government operations. 

H.J. Res. 7 would immediately end the national emergency declaration from March 2020.

"First, an abrupt end to the emergency declarations would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the healthcare system – for states, for hospitals and doctors' offices, and, most importantly, for tens of millions of Americans," the OMB said. 

"In December, Congress enacted an orderly wind-down of these rules to ensure that patients did not lose access to care unpredictably and that state budgets don't face a radical cliff," the OMB said. "If the PHE were suddenly terminated, it would sow confusion and chaos into this critical wind-down. Due to this uncertainty, tens of millions of Americans could be at risk of abruptly losing their health insurance, and states could be at risk of losing billions of dollars in funding. 

"Additionally, hospitals and nursing homes that have relied on flexibilities enabled by the emergency declarations will be plunged into chaos without adequate time to retrain staff and establish new billing processes, likely leading to disruptions in care and payment delays, and many facilities around the country will experience revenue losses." 

H.R. 382 would lift Title 42 policy at the border. While the administration has attempted to terminate the Title 42 policy, and continues to support an orderly lifting of those restrictions, Title 42 remains in place because of orders issued by the Supreme Court and a district court in Louisiana, the OMB said.

Enactment of H.R. 382 would lift Title 42 immediately and result in a substantial additional inflow of migrants at the Southwest border. 

THE LARGER TREND

The PHE has been extended 12 times since it was first made in January 2020.

The current PHE, extended by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on January 11, is scheduled to end on April 11. Providers' 60-day notice would have been on February 10.

Twitter: @SusanJMorse
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org