CMS’s Verma Visits Western PA
COVID-19 was the primary subject on the minds of health care executives who met with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Among the issues discussed at a health care forum were the concerns of hospital administrators about rising COVID-19 case counts and their worries over the adequacy of supplies of available hospital beds, drugs, and personal protective equipment in the near future; steps like enhanced access to telehealth that CMS has made available for Medicare beneficiaries to help them during the pandemic; the work – and continued existence – of the Regional Response Health Collaboratives that support long-term-care facilities fighting COVID-19 outbreaks and the possibility that those collaboratives may expire in December; and more.
Learn more about Ms. Verma’s visit to Pennsylvania in the Pittsburgh Business Times article “Hospital, nursing home execs tell CMS administrator they need more help.”
Created in July to help long-term-care facilities address their struggles responding to the COVID-19 emergency, the state has six RRHCs led by 11 Pennsylvania health systems. The RRHCs were created to provide clinical, operational, technical, and educational support to long-term-care facilities at a time when COVID-19-related deaths in such facilities accounted for more than 60 percent of all COVID-19 deaths state-wide. With financial backing from the federal CARES Act, the RRHCs support nearly 2000 long-term-care facilities of different types at which more than 127,000 Pennsylvanians currently reside.