Erratum: regional hospital zones survey. In yesterday's COVID-19 Update, we provided an incorrect link for our very short survey on activities of the regional hospital zones. We apologize for the error. The correct link is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DR55SM8. Because of this error, we are extending the survey deadline to Thursday, May 21, at 5:00 p.m. Thank you for participating!
Governor abandons Stay Safe Ohio. In his press conference today, Governor Mike DeWine announced that the Director of Health's Stay Safe Ohio order is being replaced by an Ohioans Protecting Ohioans urgent health advisory. By moving from an order to an advisory, the pronouncement loses its mandatory character. The health advisory is not yet available, but a Governor's Office release states that, "[t]he health order replaces language requiring Ohioans to stay at home with limited exceptions with language that strongly recommends that citizens, especially those who are high-risk, stay at home as much as possible. The order does not change the mass gathering restrictions, which remain at a 10-person limit."
In recent days, OHCA received a growing number of questions from members about employees traveling, particularly for vacations, and whether they needed to be quarantined for 14 days upon return. The status of travel and resultant quarantines was extremely murky under the Stay Safe Ohio order, but no longer. The urgent health advisory apparently "lifts overall travel restrictions and the requirement to quarantine if someone travels to or returns to Ohio. Unnecessary travel within or outside of Ohio is not encouraged."
In addition to the mass gatherings order, this action leaves undisturbed the Director's order on visitation and related matters for SNFs, ICFs/IID, and assisted living communities.
Visitation discussion. Speaking of the visitation order, a large group of stakeholders, led by Aging Director Ursel McElroy, met by phone this morning to discuss re-opening Ohio's long-term care facilities. The conversation was overshadowed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) guidelines for SNFs released yesterday, under which weekly testing of residents and staff is a prerequisite for relaxing the current visitation restrictions. Governor DeWine was quoted as saying the state will not be able to meet that prerequisite.
During today's call, provider organizations presented ideas for carefully re-opening visitation, with considerable provider discretion, in assisted living communities and SNFs and, separately, in homes serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Despite robust discussion, the workgroup did not reach consensus on a direction. We anticipate further meetings to grapple with this difficult subject.
Funding for tests. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio struggled to gain access to enough tests to meet the need. Help appears to be on the way, though, as the federal Department of Health and Human Services announced they are releasing additional funding to support testing in the states. This funding, which amounts to $10.25 billion across America, comes from the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. Ohio's share, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will disburse the money, is $238 million. To receive this funding, each state must submit a testing plan, reportedly by next Tuesday.
PPP loan forgiveness application. The Small Business Administration released the application borrowers must use to request forgiveness of Paycheck Protection Program loans. There are many details to the form, so borrowers will need to exercise care in completing it.
SNF managed care COVID-19 denial resource. Many OHCA members have reported issues obtaining or continuing authorizations for skilled observation and assessment of COVID-19 patients from managed care plans, even when they submit supporting documentation. Today, we learned that SNFs can escalate these issues to CMS as an urgent request utilizing the Complaints Tracking Module (CTM). The managed care plan has up to 7 calendar days to respond. An OHCA SNF member shared that they experienced great success with this methodology. Please ensure that you submit to the CTM documentation that supports meeting the skilling criteria for observation and assessment under the Medicare Benefit Policy Manual. Also of benefit on this topic is Maureen Wern's recent webinar.
NAHC holds free special town hall. Tomorrow, May 20, 2020, at 1:00 p.m., NAHC will hold a free special town hall webinar for all home health and hospice agencies. During the town hall, NAHC President Bill Dombi and other policy staff will provide a comprehensive summary and analysis of home care and hospice-related legislation and regulatory actions. To register, please click here.
Link to today's SNF member call. Here is a link to today's call for anyone who was unable to participate because of the 300-caller limit or because of scheduling issues. The call consisted entirely of questions and answers on issues of interest to members.