It’s nearly been two years (November 15, 2017) since health care providers and suppliers receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements were to comply with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Emergency Preparedness Rule. The rule was designed to establish national emergency preparedness requirements to ensure adequate planning for both natural and man-made disasters; and coordination with federal, state, tribal, regional and local emergency preparedness systems. It applied to all 17 provider and supplier types, including hospitals, long-term care (LTC) facilities, ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs), rural health clinics (RHCs), and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), among others. That is, until now.
On September 26, 2019, CMS released the Omnibus Burden Reduction (Conditions of Participation) Final Rule, which removes Medicare regulations identified as unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome on healthcare providers to reduce inefficiencies. Specifically, the final rule would reduce the emergency preparedness burden for