CARES Act: Provisions designed to aid healthcare providers in response to COVID-19

March 26, 2020

Alert

The CARES Act as passed by the U.S. Senate contains a number of provisions designed to aid healthcare providers affected by the COVID-19 emergency. McDonald Hopkins Healthcare Practice Group attorneys are monitoring the CARES Act as it moves to the House and will be issuing alerts in the coming days to help our healthcare provider clients understand how the CARES Act can support them through the COVID-19 emergency. The CARES Act contains provisions including, but not limited to:

The provision of $100 billion through a program of discretionary grants or advance reimbursement for eligible healthcare facilities and providers for expenses or lost revenue attributed to treating coronavirus patients.
Significant expansion of the use of telemedicine to increase prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of COVID-19.
Permitting the emergency use of certain diagnostic tests that are not approved by the FDA.
Expansion of health-insurance coverage for diagnostic testing and requires coverage for preventative services and vaccines.
The prevention of scheduled reductions in Medicare payments for clinical diagnostic lab tests furnished in 2021 and the delay of reporting private payer data required for laboratories by one year.
Boosting payments for hospital, physician, nursing home, home health, and other care providers by temporarily delaying reductions through the Medicare sequester.
Implementing the Medicare add-on for inpatient hospital COVID-19 patients to increase payments to hospitals by 20% for treating a patient admitted with COVID-19 through the duration of the COVID-19 emergency period.

Over the past 24 months, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights has brought notable enforcement efforts against several non-profit covered entities and business associates, resulting in instances of six and seven-figure penalties against providers across the county for incidents involving breaches of protected health information.

A new amendment to New York state law, which would have required all healthcare providers to obtain separate consents from patients for treatment and payment is on hold until further guidance is released, according to the New York Department of Health.

On November 1, 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule 2025 final rule, which establishes new advanced primary care management billing codes that will expand opportunities for physician practices, federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics and other health care providers to get paid for services provided by clinical staff under the direction of a physician, nurse practitioner or physician assistant beginning January 1, 2025.

CARES Act: Provisions designed to aid healthcare providers in response to COVID-19

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