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CMS NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 9, 2020
Contact: CMS Media
Relations
(202) 690-6145 | CMS Media Inquiries
Trump Administration Acts to Ensure U.S. Healthcare
Facilities Can Maximize Frontline Workforces to Confront COVID-19 Crisis
At President Trump’s
direction, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today
temporarily suspended a number of rules so that hospitals, clinics, and other
healthcare facilities can boost their frontline medical staffs as they fight
to save lives during the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
These changes affect
doctors, nurses, and other clinicians nationwide, and focus on reducing
supervision and certification requirements so that practitioners can be hired
quickly and perform work to the fullest extent of their licenses. The new
waivers sharply expand the workforce flexibilities CMS announced on March 30.
CMS sets and enforces
essential quality and safety standards for the nation’s healthcare system
that supplement State scope-of-practice and licensure laws for healthcare
workers. CMS has continuously examined its regulations to identify areas
where Federal requirements may be more stringent than State laws and
requirements. The changes CMS is announcing today will ensure that healthcare
facilities across the nation can expand their staffs and organize them in the
most efficient way possible to handle the incoming surge of COVID-19
patients.
Hospitals and health
systems throughout the U.S. are seeing increases in patient volumes, leading
to significant challenges in delivering vital services. Allowing clinicians
to practice to the full scope of their licenses is critical to address
staffing needs during the public health emergency.
As a result of CMS’s
action:
“It’s all hands on deck
during this crisis,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “All frontline
medical professionals need to be able to work at the highest level they were
trained for. CMS is making sure there are no regulatory obstacles to
increasing the medical workforce to handle the patient surge during the COVID
pandemic.”
CMS’s workforce changes
apply immediately and address supervision, licensure and certification, and
other limitations in healthcare settings including Critical Access Hospitals
(CAHs), Rural Health Clinics (RHCs), Federally Qualified Health Centers
(FQHCs), Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs), Home Health Agencies (HHAs), and
Hospice. These actions are part of the unprecedented array of temporary
regulatory waivers and new rules issued recently by CMS and intended to help
the American healthcare system respond to COVID-19.
CMS is the nation’s
largest health insurer, serving more than 140 million Americans through
Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and Federal
Exchanges.
On March 30, CMS issued an
unprecedented array of temporary regulatory waivers and new rules to allows
hospitals and healthcare systems to deliver services at other community-based
locations to make room for COVID-19 patients needing acute care in their main
facilities. The changes complement and augment the work of FEMA and state and
local public health authorities by empowering hospitals and healthcare
systems to rapidly expand treatment capacity and separate infected from
uninfected patients. CMS’s waivers and flexibilities will permit patients to
be triaged to a variety of community-based locales, including ambulatory
surgery centers, inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, hotels, and dormitories.
Transferring uninfected patients will help hospital staffs to focus on the
most critical COVID-19 patients, maintain infection control protocols, and
conserve personal protective equipment (PPE).
In recent weeks, CMS also
has temporarily:
For a complete list of
workforce flexibilities that CMS has permitted in recent weeks and years, go
to: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/summary-covid-19-emergency-declaration-waivers.pdf
For a fact sheet detailing
additional information on the waivers announced today and previously, go to: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/summary-covid-19-emergency-declaration-waivers.pdf
These actions, and earlier
CMS actions in response to COVID-19, are part of the ongoing White House
Coronavirus Task Force efforts. To keep up with the important work the Task
Force is doing in response to COVID19, visit www.coronavirus.gov. For a complete and
updated list of CMS actions, and other information specific to CMS, please
visit the Current Emergencies Website.
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Get CMS news at cms.gov/newsroom, sign up for CMS news via email and follow CMS on Twitter CMS
Administrator @SeemaCMS, @CMSgov, and @CMSgovPress.
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Thursday, April 9, 2020
Trump Administration Acts to Ensure U.S. Healthcare Facilities Can Maximize Frontline Workforces to Confront COVID-19 Crisis
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