Stay Safe Ohio and Ohioans Protecting Ohioans. Today Health Director Dr. Amy Acton issued two new decisions. Contrary to our expectations, she issued a new order that retains the Stay Safe Ohio order but rescinds section 3 (stay at home) and sections 5 and 15 (travel ban). The stay at home provision is replaced by an Ohioans Protecting Ohioans urgent health advisory that recommends people stay at home and strongly urges people who are 65 years of age or older or who have various medical conditions listed in the advisory to stay home except for medical appointments. The travel ban and accompanying quarantine language in Stay Safe Ohio are replaced by a single provision prohibiting individuals confirmed or presumed to have active COVID-19 or who are exhibiting symptoms from entering the state, with certain exceptions.
Universal testing coming? Under the new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recommendations, all staff in SNFs should be given polymerase chain reaction (swab) COVID-19 tests to set a baseline and weekly thereafter, and all residents should be tested at baseline and then weekly whenever there are positive results. Compared to some other states, Ohio is behind the curve on this approach, as OHCA members still report being unable to get full testing even when positive cases appear. While Governor Mike DeWine stated on more than one occasion that Ohio is not able to do universal testing, he appears to be contemplating utilizing the National Guard to help get to that result, as has been done elsewhere. The availability of test kits and who pays for test processing remain questions, and there a number of other practical issues to universal testing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ohio is poised to receive $238 million of Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act funds that are earmarked for testing. AHCA today published estimates showing that a single test for all residents and staff in America's SNFs would cost $440 million, of which $25 million is attributed to Ohio.
Provider Relief Fund update. No, we do not have anything solid on when the next tranche or tranches of Provider Relief Fund (PRF) payments will go out. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), however, did publish some additional information relative to past PRF payments. The agency added to its frequently-asked questions document a few answers dealing with changes of ownership (see pages 9-10). The upshot is a previous operator should not retain payments they received or transfer them to the new operator. Separately, HHS announced that June 3, 2020, is the deadline for accepting the PRF Terms and Conditions and submitting revenue information for the second tranche of payments, which HHS calls "additional payments."
Interpretations of the day. A couple of questions we received from multiple members today:
- With the lifting of the travel ban, are we still required to quarantine employees when they return from vacation? No, the quarantine provision is eliminated along with the travel ban.
- When are we required to begin weekly testing? CMS does not require weekly testing, they recommend it. It is up to the states to require or to offer it. Although as discussed above, Ohio may be moving in that direction, no annoucement has been made.
BWC face covering shipments. Governor Mike DeWine announced yesterday that the Bureau of Workers Compensation is to begin shipping face coverings to businesses around the state today. Each state-fund employer is to receive a package with at least 50 face coverings. They are being sent out in batches.