Articles and Blogs

Shutdown Could Create Opportunity to Advance Health Care Policy The need for lawmakers to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling could create an opportunity for a number of health policy items to move through Congress. Unfortunately, because many congressional staffers are furloughed and not working on new legislation, the odds of advancing legislation…Read More

Effective October 1, 2013, Texas Health and Human Services Commission (“HHSC”) will begin reimbursing eligible distant site professionals providing home telemonitoring services as a benefit of the Texas Medicaid Program, making it one of the first states to provide direct reimbursement for home telemonitoring services.    Such services will be reimbursed in the same manner as…Read More

Executive Summary On October 1, 2013, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released a Survey and Certification Letter (“S&C Letter”) that identified how the governmental shutdown (“Shutdown”) will affect state survey agency (“SA”) functions for all providers and suppliers. The S&C Letter delineates what SA functions are essential to ensure the protection of…Read More

E-Verify Is Down, but I-9s Are Up Employers who attempted to access E-Verify during the week of October 2 were stopped by the following error message: “E-Verify is currently unavailable due to a government shutdown.”  This error message raised several questions for employers, specifically whether Form I-9 requirements were suspended as well.  This concern was…Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) has issued draft guidance on its Investigational Device Exemption (“IDE”) process for medical devices, titled Decisions for Investigational Device Exemption Clinical Investigations.  The draft guidance introduces a new pre-decisional IDE review process, through which medical device sponsors can seek the FDA’s input on significant issues before submitting an…Read More

The most recent revisions to the Resident Assessment Instrument (“RAI”) User’s Manual became effective yesterday for all assessments with an assessment date on or after October 1.  The significant portion of the revisions addresses changes to therapy coding and swallowing and nutrition.  

DOL Extends Minimum Wage and Overtime Protections to Home Care Workers Last week, the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) Wage and Hour Division released a new rule extending minimum wage and overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) to home care workers employed by third-party employers.  The new rule, which is not scheduled to take…Read More

Prior to the government shutdown, Representative Jim McDermott of Washington introduced a bill that would end the hospital inpatient requirement for skilled nursing facility (“SNF”) coverage.  

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a Survey & Certification Memo (“S&C Letter”) to state agencies detailing the result of the governmental shutdown on long-term care providers as it relates to surveys.  As of this writing, the S&C Letter has not been published or otherwise made publicly available, and the below information…Read More

Committee Releases New Doc Fix Draft On July 18, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released an updated framework to replace Medicare’s physician payment system.  The framework represents the first draft proposal to include Democrats’ names, including the ranking member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Subcommittee on Health ranking member Frank Pallone (D-NJ).  The Subcommittee on…Read More