CMS Releases ‘Roadmap’ for Providers to Prepare for End of Covid-19 PHE
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services this week released a series of fact sheets and resources to help the nation’s healthcare providers prepare for the end of the Covid-19 public health emergency (PHE), which will also end many of the flexibilities the agency offered during the global pandemic.
A blog post from three CMS leaders noted that the agency learned from providers, facilities, insurers, and other stakeholders about what worked well—and didn’t—in relation to the agency’s waivers and other temporary measures.
“Expanding telehealth is an example of a congressional change,” said the blog post from Jonathan Blum, CMS’ chief operating officer and principal deputy administrator; Carol Blackford, director of the agency’s hospital and ambulatory policy group; and Jean Moody-Williams, deputy director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality. “
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 expanded access to telehealth services for the diagnosis, evaluation, or treatment of mental health disorders after the end of the PHE,” the authors continued. “These services have been so important to the health and well-being of Americans affected by Covid-19.”
The post also noted that U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra will give the healthcare community 60 days’ notice before the PHE ends.
Providers can refer to a host of fact sheets and resources from CMS in links at the end of the blog
post to help prepare as the PHE winds down.
CMS Rule Proposes Requiring Behavioral Health Quality Data Reporting
CMS on Thursday released a proposed
rule that would require annual state reporting for three quality measure sets, including the behavioral health measures in the Core Set of Adult Health Care Quality Measures for Medicaid.
The Behavioral Health Core Set includes 13 measures: a depression measure under the Primary Care Access and Preventive Care domain; four measures related to individuals with substance use disorders including one related to medication assisted treatment; two related to the prescribing of opioids; and six measures related to individuals with mental disorders. These core sets are designed to measure the overall national quality of care for beneficiaries, monitor performance at the state level, improve the quality of health care, and provide a national view of quality.
CMS has proposed that reporting these measures—currently a voluntary practice—become mandatory in fiscal year 2024. Data reported in 2024 will reflect care delivered in calendar year 2023.
“The Medicaid and CHIP Core Sets of quality measures for children, adults, and health home services are key to promoting health equity,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in an announcement. “They will allow us not only to identify health disparities but also to implement interventions based on the very data that make those disparities clear.”
In addition to the Child and Adult Core Sets, CMS has proposed establishing reporting requirements for states that elect to implement one or both of the optional Medicaid health home benefits under sections 1945 or 1945A of the
Social Security Act, which will measure healthcare quality for states that choose to establish “health homes.”
Public comments about the proposed rule are due Oct. 21, 2022. The rule will be published in the
Federal Register on Monday, Aug. 22.
New JAMA Study Shows Pervasiveness of Methamphetamine Use in Rural America
Findings from a
JAMA Network Open study released this week show that nearly four of five people taking drugs in rural areas across 10 states used methamphetamine in the past 30 days.
Meanwhile, non-fatal overdoses in the past six months were higher among people using both methamphetamines and opioids (22%), compared with opioids alone (14%), or methamphetamines alone (6%).
“The challenge is compounded in rural communities that often lack buprenorphine prescribers: more than one-half of U.S. counties (53.4%) do not have a buprenorphine prescriber, leaving 30 million people in those counties without access to treatment,” the researchers wrote. “Similarly, rural opioid treatment programs are rare, leading to long driving times to access methadone,” they continued, adding that educational interventions are needed to train primary care physicians, who are essential providers of opioid use disorder treatment in rural America.
“For example,” they wrote, “contingency management training interventions could be adapted to support rural primary care practitioners.”
NABH Annual Membership Updates Are Due Today
The deadline to submit changes about your organization for the online-only NABH 2022 Membership Directory is today
, Friday, Aug. 19.
Last month NABH sent its system members a message with a link to the association’s membership-update tool. To help ensure we have the most accurate information on our members, please use this tool to verify your system’s information.
NABH has added several new categories this year. The answers to these questions will help us provide a more accurate description of our diverse membership to policymakers, regulators, partner organizations, and the media.
Please be sure to enter information for all your system’s facilities so that we have a better picture of our diverse membership.
If you need assistance, please contact Maria Merlie at
maria@nabh.org. Thank you!
Enhanced NABH Denial-of-Care Portal is Now Available
NABH recently made enhancements to its Denial-of-Care Portal that are intended to make the portal easier for members to use.
A year ago, NABH developed the Denial-of-Care Portal to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard to parity or the effects on patients. Now the association has updated this resource to make it more user-friendly for members and also more aligned with what regulators need to identify parity violations.
The updated portal includes fewer questions, which will require less time for members to complete. In addition, all questions are now optional. NABH hopes this will make it more likely for members to share the data they have. Lastly, NABH has added a checklist of “red flags” that were included in the
2022 MHPAEA Report to Congress from the U.S. Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury Departments in January.
Please e-mail
Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions about the portal.
Save the Date for the NABH 2023 Annual Meeting!
Please mark your calendars and plan to join us in Washington, DC from
June 12-14, 2023 for next year’s NABH Annual Meeting!
Fact of the Week
A new
study in
The Lancet Psychiatry shows that up to two years after Covid-19 infection, the risk of developing conditions such as psychosis, dementia, brain fog, and seizures is still higher than after other respiratory infections; however, the findings also showed that while anxiety and depression are more common soon after a Covid-19 diagnosis, the mood orders are transient, becoming no more likely after the two months than following similar infections, such as the flu. To learn more, read this
story in
STAT.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond