Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt on June 16 declared a public health emergency in the flood-stricken states of Iowa and Indiana. The action is intended to give Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Medicare beneficiaries and their healthcare providers greater flexibility in meeting emergency health needs.
Because of flood damage to local healthcare facilities, many beneficiaries have been evacuated to neighboring communities, where receiving hospitals and nursing homes may have no healthcare records, information on current health status, or even verification of the person’s status as a Medicare beneficiary. CMS is assuring those facilities that in this circumstance, they can act under a presumption of eligibility.
Among other actions, CMS will waive the three-day prior hospitalization requirement for evacuated patients admitted to skilled nursing facilities and relax limitations on the benefit period for those evacuated patients; it will also not count the evacuated patients in calculating the 25-day average length of stay in affected long-term care hospitals. CMS is also allowing beneficiaries in health plans to go out of network during this emergency. Access the web site.
