The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:45 p.m. on Wednesday, June 30.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

Supreme Court Decision in Site-Neutral Payment Case

• The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of a case rejecting the bid of hospital interests to prevent Medicare’s implementation of site-neutral payment rates for outpatient clinic visits.

Provider Relief Fund

CMS has updated the following pages on its Provider Relief Fund web site:  For Providers, General Information, Data, Reporting Requirements and Auditing, and FAQs.  The updates incorporate changes originally communicated in the June 11, 2021 update of the Post-Payment Notice of Reporting requirements.  CMS has summarized those changes in a revised answer to the question “What’s the latest regarding the CARES Act Provider Relief Fund” on the FAQ page?”, which reads as follows:

HHS revised the Post-Payment Notice of Reporting Requirements – PDF* as of June 11, 2021. This new version supersedes all previous versions of the Post-Payment Notice of Reporting Requirements documents. Key updates include:

• The period of availability of funds is based on the date the payment is received (rather than requiring all payments be used

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Monday, June 28.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

Supreme Court Decision in Affordable Care Act Case

• The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of a case in which insurers unsuccessfully sued to recover reductions in their Affordable Care Act federal cost-sharing reduction payments.

White House

• The White House has posted a transcript of the June 22 press briefing given by its COVID-19 response team and public health officials.

Department of Health and Human Services

COVID-19

• HHS and the FDA have paused all distribution of bamlanivimab and etesevimab together and etesevimab alone, to pair with existing supply of bamlanivimab, on a national basis until further notice.  In addition, the FDA has recommended that health care providers nation-wide use alternative authorized monoclonal antibody therapies and not use bamlanivimab and etesevimab administered together at this time.  Learn more about why the agencies have taken this action and what they propose as alternatives from this message distributed by HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response,
• HHS’s Office of the Inspector General has published a

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:15 p.m. on Monday, June 21.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

Supreme Court Decision in Affordable Care Act Challenge

• The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act in the California v. Texas case by a 7-2 vote in which the court concluded that the plaintiffs did not have standing to pursue the matter because they were not directly harmed.  See the court’s opinion here.

White House

• The White House has posted a transcript of the June 17 press briefing given by its COVID-19 response team and public health officials.

Department of Health and Human Services

COVID-19

• HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) has suspended distribution of the monoclonal antibodies bamlanivimab/etesevimab in Rhode Island because of the rising prevalence in that state of the COVID-19 P.1 (Gamma) variant (first identified in Brazil) and the B.1.351 (Beta) variant (first identified in South Africa) and the relative ineffectiveness of these therapies in fighting these variants.  ASPR has already suspended distribution of these monoclonal antibodies in Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Oregon, Washington, Illinois,

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 15.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

Provider Relief Fund

• Late last week HHS announced that it has increased the amount of time providers will have to report information and extended key deadlines for expending Provider Relief Fund payments for recipients that received payments after June 30, 2020.  The revised reporting requirements will be applicable to providers that received one or more payments exceeding, in the aggregate, $10,000 during a single payment-received period from the Provider Relief Fund General Distributions, Targeted Distributions, and/or Skilled Nursing Facility and Nursing Home Infection Control Distributions.  For additional information, see the following resources:
  • the HHS/HRSA announcement
  • the revised reporting requirements
  • the Provider Relief Fund reporting portal
  • the Provider Relief Fund reporting portal FAQ

HHS also has updated its Provider Relief Fund FAQ to reflect those changes.  The changes in the FAQ, which address how much time fund recipients have to spend their grants, how they must report on their spending, how audits will be conducted, and how certain data elements in the reporting requirements are defined, can be found …

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 10.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents.

White House

Health Policy News

• The White House has released a memo titled “What We Urge You To Do To Protect Against The Threat of Ransomware.”  This memo addresses the growing number and size of ransomware incidents and calls upon government and the private sector to take steps to protect their organizations from this growing threat.  The memo also outlines the federal government’s recommended best practices.  Find the memo here.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

COVID-19

• To improve access to COVID-19 vaccines for the home-bound, CMS announced that Medicare will pay an additional $35 per dose for COVID-19 vaccine administration in a beneficiary’s home, increasing the total payment amount for at-home vaccination from approximately $40 to approximately $75 per vaccine dose.  For a two-dose vaccine this results in a total payment of approximately $150 for the administration of both doses, or approximately $70 more than the current rate.  For further information, see the following resources:
  • CMS’s announcement of this pay increase
  • further information about the payment