In two recent memoranda, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made changes to previously issued survey guidance related to COVID-19 vaccination issues.
Continue Reading CMS Reduces COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Surveys and Rescinds Surveyor Vaccination Requirements
On February 4, 2022, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued important updated guidance in a memo (QSO-21-08-NLTC) regarding how acute and continuing care facilities—including hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, end-stage renal disease facilities, home health agencies, and hospices—manage infection control procedures in light of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
Continue Reading CMS Discontinues Prior Guidance on Visitation Restrictions and Rescinds COVID-19 Focus Infection Control Survey Procedures
On March 9, 2020, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (“ONC”) and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published their long-awaited final rules that seeks to promote interoperability. Market participants waited longer than usual for this rule due to the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) extending the comment period at the request of a variety of stakeholders.
The ONC’s rule (the “Final Rule”) supports interoperability by prohibiting “information blocking”. Affected organizations (see below) will want to be considering the impact on contracts and developing compliance policies that reflect the requirements of the Final Rule. One aspect of needed compliance relates to the Final Rule’s exceptions to information blocking including a newly-added “content and manner” exception.
Generally, information blocking is defined as an action by an actor interfering with, preventing, or materially discouraging access, exchange, or use of electronic health information[1] (“EHI”). Actors include health care providers, health IT developers, health information exchanges, or health information network. In the proposed rule, the ONC proposed seven exceptions to conduct that might otherwise be deemed information blocking. However, in the Final Rule, ONC created eight exceptions. Further, the ONC defined two categories of exceptions: (1) Exceptions that involve not fulfilling requests to access, exchange, or use EHI and (2) Exceptions that involve procedures for fulfilling requests to access, exchange, or use EHI. Each of the eight enumerated exceptions are categorized as follows: