Hurricane Helene: CMS offers advanced payments, blanket waivers

CMS has announced accelerated and advanced payments for Medicare fee-for-service providers in response to Hurricane Helene.

 

Blanket waivers are also available for affected communities in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Dates for when the waivers became effective are dependent on the state.

 

Accelerated and advance payments may be granted in amounts equal to a percentage of the preceding 90 days of claims payments, according to CMS.

 

These payments will be repaid through automatic recoupment from Medicare claims for a period of 90 days following the issuance of the accelerated or advance payment. A demand will be issued for any remaining balance on day 91, CMS notes.

 

 

Waivers specific to home health agencies include:

 

Reporting. CMS is providing relief to HHAs on the timeframes related to OASIS Transmission through the following actions below:

Initial Assessments. CMS is waiving the requirements at 42 CFR §484.55(a) to allow HHAs to perform Medicare-covered initial assessments and determine patients’ homebound status remotely or by record review. This will allow patients to be cared for in the best environment for them while reducing the impact on acute care and long- term care facilities. This will allow for maximizing coverage by already scarce physician, and advanced practice clinicians, and allow those clinicians to focus on caring for patients with the greatest acuity.

 

For hospice providers, CMS is modifying certain requirements at 42 CFR §418.54 related to updating comprehensive assessments of patients. This modifies the timeframes for updates to the comprehensive assessment found at §418.54(d). Hospices must continue to complete other required assessments (i.e., initial and ad-hoc assessments based on a change in the patient's condition); however, the timeframes for updating the comprehensive assessment may be extended from 15 to 21 days.