In advance of President Joe Biden’s address to a Joint Session of Congress this evening, the White House unveiled the American Families Plan, the “human infrastructure” component of the Administration’s broader infrastructure plan (fact sheet). The roughly $1.8 trillion proposal calls for investments in child care, paid leave, nutrition, and education as well as various…

On September 15, 2020, the Taskforce on Telehealth Policy (TTP) – convened by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, Alliance for Connected Care, and American Telemedicine Association – convened a public briefing on its findings and recommendations regarding the COVID-19 telehealth flexibility expansions (full report). First announced in June 2020 (details), the TTP was convened…

The Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it is formally extending the deadline for when it must publish the final rule amending the physician self-referral regulations. The deadline is now listed as August 31, 2021. The agency first proposed these changes in October 2019 as part of the agency’s broader effort to promote value-based care…

On August 4, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced new guidance (here) stating it will temporarily be exercising enforcement discretion to allow health plan issuers in the individual and small group markets to offer premium reductions for one or more months for 2020 coverage. Details follow. Generally, CMS states, health plan…

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) and the Office of Minority Health (OMH) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced a funding opportunity (MP-CPI-20-001) titled, “State/Tribal/Territorial Partnership Initiative to Document and Sustain Disparity-Reducing Interventions.” This initiative is intended to help build the capacity of state, tribal, and territorial governmental…

On July 23, 2020,, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar signed a renewal of his determination that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic constitutes a nationwide public health emergency (PHE). Secretary Azar first declared COVID-19 a nationwide PHE on January 31, 2020, utilizing his authority under Sec. 319 of the Public Health Service…

On July 15, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma published a blog post in Health Affairs outlining the impact telehealth has had during the COVID-19 pandemic. The post also provides a glimpse at how the agency is thinking about whether to make certain telehealth flexibilities permanent once the public…

Secretary Azar declared the COVID-19 pandemic a nationwide public health emergency (PHE) on Jan. 31, 2020, utilizing his authority under Sec. 319 of the Public Health Service Act (PHS law; PHE FAQs). That law says that a PHE declaration lasts until the Secretary declares that it no longer exists or upon the expiration of the…

On May 27, 2020, the House Ways and Means Committee convened its first ever virtual hearing to discuss the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color. Overall, members vocalized support for the need to address the underlying reasons behind why minority communities have experienced higher rates of infection and mortality linked to COVID-19. Specifically,…

On May 22, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Contract Year (CY) 2021 Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D Final Rule (press release; fact sheet).  Of note, CMS is finalizing only a subset of the proposed policies, and will address the remaining proposed policies in subsequent rulemaking in 2020. What…