CMS Releases Updated Visitation and Survey & Oversight Guidance
Updated Visitation Guidance: On Friday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released updated guidance on nursing home visitation. Visitation is now allowed for all residents at all times, in accordance with adherence to the core principles of COVID-19 infection prevention and control to mitigate the risk of infection spread. Residents may continue to deny or withdraw consent for a visitation at any time.
From the memo: "Facilities must allow indoor visitation at all times and for all residents as permitted under the regulations. While previously acceptable during the PHE, facilities can no longer limit the frequency and length of visits for residents, the number of visitors, or require advance scheduling of visits."
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New Template Policies and Procedures Available on CMS Staff Vaccine Mandate
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published an Interim Final Rule (IFR) requiring Skilled Nursing Facilities, Nursing Facilities, and ICF-IIDs to establish a policy ensuring that all eligible staff be vaccinated for COVID-19 or request a medical or religious exemption.
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The implementation dates for this rule are as follows:
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Phase 1 – December 6, 2021: Staff must have received at least the first dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine or a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine.
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Phase 2 – January 4, 2022: Staff must be fully vaccinated, except staff who have been granted exemptions, or those whom COVID-19 vaccination must be temporarily delayed as recommended by the CDC due to clinical precautions and considerations.
It’s important that providers put a policies and procedures in place NOW to come into compliance with these requirements. To assist members, AHCA/NCAL has developed a template policies and procedures (P&P) that members can personalize to meet their needs. Note that this P&P document will be updated once CMS has released its interpretive guidance.
AHCA/NCAL will host a webinar on how to implement religious and medical exemptions to the mandate on November 22 at 4 PM Eastern, so mark your calendars and stay tuned for login information.
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CMS’s Staff Vaccine Mandate: Implementing Religious & Medical Exemptions
Presented by Craig S. Roberts and Henry S. Shapiro, labor and
employment attorneys with Jackson Lewis, P.C.
Monday, November 22, 2021 | 4:00 PM Eastern
Watch for login information next week.
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CMS Releases 2022 Medicare Parts A and B Premiums and Deductibles
On Friday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2022 Medicare Parts A and B premiums, deductibles, and coinsurance amounts, and the 2022 Part D income-related monthly adjustment amounts. Most people with Medicare will see a 5.9 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in their 2022 Social Security benefits – the largest COLA in 30 years. This significant COLA increase will more than cover the increase in the Medicare Part B monthly premium.
The standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B enrollees will be $170.10 for 2022, an increase of $21.60 from $148.50 in 2021. The annual deductible for all Medicare Part B beneficiaries is $233 in 2022, an increase of $30 from the annual deductible of $203 in 2021.
CMS also announced that the Medicare Part A inpatient hospital deductible that beneficiaries pay if admitted to the hospital will be $1,556 in 2022, an increase of $72 from $1,484 in 2021.
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Vaccination Promotion Video
Featuring MD Speaker of the House Adrienne Jones and Healthcare Heroes - Cherie Taylor and Renee Harris!
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In our fight against the COVID-19 virus, vaccines work. The vaccines are highly effective in preventing people from getting sick or seriously ill from COVID-19 and in slowing the spread of the virus. The vaccines are the best tool we have as new, more contagious, and threatening variants of the virus, like Delta, begin to emerge.
Maryland, and our healthcare heroes, have led the nation in vaccination. Skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers, assisted living campuses, and hospitals in Maryland were prioritized and the first vaccines were getting into the arms of Marylanders in need on December 23, 2020.
Even before any government vaccine mandate and as HFAM issued statements supporting healthcare employers who mandated the vaccine, on average, 79 percent of the staff were vaccinated—today, 86.9 percent of staff are fully vaccinated vaccinated.
All of that said, now is NOT a time for any of us to let down our guard – together, we must continue pushing to increase staff vaccination in the healthcare sector.
That’s why we are eternally grateful to Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates Adrienne Jones, as well as Cherie Taylor and Renee Harris of the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington for recording this HFAM public service video to help encourage people living and working in skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers and on assisted living campuses to get vaccinated—and to get the booster!
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Some behind the scenes of the making of this video! |
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from our federal and state partners.
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