As reported in a previous blog post, the Texas 87th Legislature passed S.B. 809, an Act adding Chapter 81A entitled “Coronavirus Disease Public Health Emergency Reporting” to the Texas Health and Safety Code. This Act requires “health care institutions” who received federal relief funds under the CARES Act, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, or the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to report the amounts received to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. As directed in the Act, HHSC has issued proposed rules regarding the reporting requirements, comments were due September 3, 2021.

The Act defines “health care institution” as an entity listed in Texas Health and Safety Code 74.001(11).

This Spring, the Texas 87th Legislature passed S.B. 809, an Act adding Chapter 81A entitled “Coronavirus Disease Public Health Emergency Reporting” to the Texas Health and Safety Code. This Act requires “health care institutions” who received federal relief funds under the CARES Act, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, or the American Rescue Plan Act of

On Friday February 26, 2021, several agencies including The Departments of Labor, health, and Humans Services (HHS) published FAQs regarding health insurance issuers’ obligations under the FFCRA and CARES Act for governing diagnosing testing for COVID-19 and related items and serves during the public health emergency.  This new guidance is helpful for plans, providers, and individuals alike and provides clarity on the nuances of coverage for COVID-19 tests and vaccines.

Thursday, October 22, 2020
Live Webinar | Noon – 1:00 p.m. CDT 

Please join Husch Blackwell as we go virtual with our Health Law Conference. The series will include a range of important topics relevant to the healthcare industry and will be moderated by Curt Chase, leader of the firm’s Healthcare, Life Sciences and Education team; Hal Katz, American Bar Association, Health Law Section, Chair; and Tom Shorter, American Health Law Association, President-Elect Designate. The webinar programs will be offered every Thursday through November 19.

Healthcare providers of all sizes have received portions of the recently available federal funds. Healthcare organizations that receive these funds will need to provide accountability for their use to ensure compliance. In our fourth session, a panel will discuss various avenues to manage enforcement risk.

The Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced on August 7th details of the next CARES Act-authorized nursing home Provider Relief Fund (“PRF”) distribution. The PRF distribution will total $5 billion, and will be used to protect residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities from the impact of COVID-19.

Under new guidance from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), hospices and other providers who received CARES Act Provider Relief Fund payments can hold off on filing their first quarterly compliance report, slated to be due on July 10, 2020.[1] Instead, HHS states that it will develop its own report and this report itself will contain “all information necessary for recipients of Provider Relief Fund payments to comply with” the quarterly reporting requirements under the Relief Fund Terms and Conditions.

After the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) automatically distributed $30 billion to providers as Tranche #1 Relief Fund payments based on 2019 Medicare fee-for-service payment data, HHS subsequently released a new formula that was based on 2018 “program service revenue” and intended to calculate providers’ payments under Relief Fund Tranches #1 and #2 cumulatively.  For providers whose Tranche #1 payments alone exceeded their expected payment under the new “program service revenue” formula, there have been ongoing questions about whether such providers were “overpaid” and needed to reject and return their Tranche #1 payments.

Many hospices understand the general framework established for use of relief payments from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. However, many questions remain about how to evaluate whether specific expenses and losses may be covered by the relief fund.

Join attorneys from Husch Blackwell’s Hospice & Palliative Care team and accounting professionals from Crowe as they discuss commonly asked questions from hospices across the country. They will share legal and accounting perspectives as well as practical considerations to help hospices as they operationalize their use of relief payments. Register here: https://bit.ly/2LNbLZ0

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will soon make targeted distributions of the next tranche of the Provider Relief Fund to hospitals and other facilities that have been particularly affected by caring for those with the coronavirus. By 11:59 p.m. ET, hospitals will need to complete the HHS information request on ICU beds, COVID-19 positive patients, etc. Specifically, to be eligible to receive a portion of the $10 billion of the next $70 billion in funding from the CARES Act, providers need to submit the information via a CMS portal. This is not a guarantee of payment—rather, CMS is using this information to decide how to allocate the remaining funds.

The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has opened the COVID-19 Telehealth Program Application portal and is now accepting applications for the COVID-19 Telehealth Program (the “Telehealth Program”). Authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”), the Telehealth Program will provide $200 million in funding to assist eligible health care providers deliver telehealth services to patients in their homes or other mobile locations in an effort to combat the novel Coronavirus 2019 disease (“COVID-19”).  The funding is available for eligible health care providers responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by fully compensating providers for their telecommunication services, information services, and devices necessary for them to provide critical telehealth services. Notably, the Telehealth Program is not currently available to certain types of health care providers, including for-profit providers. Consequently, some providers, including local hospitals that are part of a larger for-profit health system, may find themselves ineligible for telehealth funding.