CMS Provides Guidance on Medicaid DSH Calculations
State Medicaid program accounting for hospital uncompensated care when calculating hospital-specific Medicaid disproportionate share limits is the subject of new guidance from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
In the guidance, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services explains that because of several court rulings, states can decide for themselves whether to offset third-party payer payments from costs in their Medicaid DSH calculations for periods prior to June 2, 2017 but that beginning with that date, CMS will enforce its own interpretation of the policy.
In new guidance, CMS presents two methodologies for accounting for its mid-year policy change and reminds stakeholders about its new methodology for calculations after June 2, 2017. Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services and its Office of Medical Assistance Programs have not yet indicated how they will respond to the options CMS has presented.
Learn more from this Medicaid notice and from its accompanying CMS informational bulletin “Treatment of Third Party Payers (TPP) in Calculating Uncompensated Care Costs (UCC).”
Governor Wolf has presented his fall legislative agenda. Among his proposals, he called for $225 million for hazard pay for frontline workers; $10 million for a personal protective equipment reimbursement program for small businesses; and $250 million for child care for families with school-age children in need of care because of blended or remote in-person instruction models. Learn more about these and other aspects of the governor’s proposal 
The Department of Health has unveiled “CATE” (Community-Accessible Testing and Education”), a recreational vehicle that has been equipped as a mobile COVID-19 testing and education unit that will travel the state offering free COVID-19 tests and education in medically underserved communities in 16 counties. Established and operated by the organization Latino Connection, staffed by the Welsh Mountain Health Centers, and funded in part by the state, Highmark, and Independence Blue Cross, CATE has more than 30 stops scheduled during September, the first half of them in the Philadelphia area and then moving westward across the state. Appointments are not needed and CATE’s tests will be performed by the state’s lab in Exton, which is producing results in 24 to 48 hours. Learn more about CATE, its origins, and its scheduled stops in this Department of Health 
The Wolf administration’s 
HHS announced that it will distribute $1.4 billion in CARES Act Provider Relief Fund grants to nearly 80 free-standing children’s hospitals. Qualifying children’s hospitals must be either an exempt hospital under CMS’s Medicare inpatient prospective payment system or be a HRSA-defined Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education facility. Eligible hospitals will receive 2.5 percent of their net revenue from patient care. Qualifying free-standing children’s hospitals will begin receiving grants next week. Learn more from this 
In a message to families in anticipation of a new school year, the Wolf administration stressed the importance of children receiving their required childhood vaccinations but reminded Pennsylvanians that the Department of Health has temporarily suspended its requirements for children’s immunizations for two months after the beginning of the school year or the beginning of enrollment in an early childhood education program. See the Wolf administration’s news release on this subject 
Eligible providers may now apply for Provider Relief Fund phase 2 general distributions. These are providers that are being given another opportunity to receive Provider Relief Fund payments after missing the June 3, 2020 deadline to apply for funding equal to two percent of their total patient care revenue from the $20 billion portion of the $50 billion phase 1 general distribution; this group also includes Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), dental providers with low Medicare revenues, and hospitals that received payments in the phase 1 distribution but returned them. In addition, providers that experienced a change in ownership, making them ineligible for phase 1 funding, also may apply.
CMS COVID-19 Stakeholder Calls
Governor Wolf and Health Secretary Levine held a joint news conference on Thursday, August 6. Among the issues they highlighted:
HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response held a webinar in late July on the use of telemedicine in alternative care sites. Now available from that webinar are the 
The FDA has issued guidance on 
In a letter to Pennsylvania senators Pat Toomey and Bob Casey, SNAP weighed in on this issue, urging them to work with their colleagues
Included in this month’s edition are articles about:
DHS reminded personal care homes, assisted living residents, and intermediate care facilities that they must complete a baseline universal test for COVID-19 of all residents and staff no later than August 31, 2020. Those subject to this universal testing requirement, as mandated by the Secretary of Health, include any resident or staff person who has never been tested and any resident or staff person who was tested prior to June 12, 2020 and whose test result was negative. Learn more about the requirement 
CMS hosts recurring stakeholder engagement sessions to share information related to the agency’s response to COVID-19. These sessions are open to members of the health care community and are intended to provide updates, share best practices among peers, and offer attendees an opportunity to ask questions of CMS and other subject matter experts.