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IPFS News Link • Healthcare Industry

What happens when the COVID national emergency ends

• Axios

Why it matters: The vote might happen once Republicans take control of the House next year, though President Biden would likely veto it.

-Quick reminder: Lots of health groups are concerned about unwinding the public health emergency, but that's a separate declaration with different implications.

Here's what you need to know about the national emergency declaration, which then-President Trump declared early in the pandemic and which President Biden extended:

-For the health care sector, its main effect is on deadlines to file claims for COBRA and flexible spending accounts, said Lindsay Wiley, a health law professor at UCLA.

-Specifically, the extensions would be rolled back for certain deadlines for signing up for COBRA health plans, the date for making COBRA premium payments, the deadline for employers telling individuals about their COBRA continuation rights, and the timeframe for filing claims for COBRA, said James Gelfand, president of the ERISA Industry Committee.

-Under the emergency authority, HHS also can waive requirements for federal health programs to make it easier to serve patients, like the rules that require physicians to be licensed in the state where they're providing services.

-States have been kind of expecting these emergency flexibilities to end, so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to them to adjust their Medicaid programs back, said Jack Rollins, director of federal policy with the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

-But one issue could be one of the waivers that allows members of households to be paid caregivers for Medicaid home community services.

-"It is less clear that can happen without an emergency authority," Rollins said. "States will have questions about that."


www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm