Highlights
The victories by Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the Georgia runoff elections for the U.S. Senate mean that incoming majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will preside over the narrowest possible majority in the Senate under which Vice President Kamala Harris would provide the tie-breaking vote.
The House and the Senate s narrow margins make it unlikely that broad sweeping proposals advanced by progressive Democrats but not supported by their more moderate colleagues will be able to pass. However, control of the Senate should significantly impact the prospects for President Biden s healthcare agenda.
This Holland & Knight alert provides an updated assessment of healthcare policy activities likely to see action in the new 117th Congress and the Biden Administration in the wake of the Georgia runoff elections and based on additional information coming out of the Biden-Harris team.
Saturday, January 9, 2021
Highlights
A fourth federal COVID stimulus package, totaling $900 billion was signed into law on Dec. 27, 2020
The package, also known as the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2021, extends many relief programs from the CARES Act
Relief funding is available to individuals, businesses, banks, healthcare providers, tribal governments, transportation, infrastructure, and more
For businesses, communities and individuals, the $900 billion stimulus package signed into law carries more than just the weight of its 5,000 pages.
The stimulus package – referred to as the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2021 – extends a number of CARES Act pandemic relief programs, creates several new programs and makes technical corrections to resolve ambiguities and implementation difficulties discovered after the passage of the CARES Act.
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The Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule for Calendar Year 2021 (the Final Rule) issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on December 1, 2020, and published in the Federal Register on December 28, 2020, made significant and far-reaching changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS). In the Final Rule, which went into effect on January 1, 2021, CMS implemented changes to streamline the reporting process for office and outpatient evaluation and management (E/M) services and increased the relative value units (RVUs) for E/M services.
To account for the increase in RVUs for E/M services and still maintain compliance with the budget neutrality adjustment, CMS decreased the 2021 conversion factor to $32.41, down $3.68 (or 10%) from 2020. CMS also implemented a number of changes reflecting permanent shifts to the healthcare system as a result of COVID-19 by expanding reimbursable telehealth servi
Thursday, December 24, 2020
On Monday, December 21, Congress enacted a $900 billion stimulus package that includes support for American health care providers and patients impacted by COVID-19, and additional funding for COVID-19 mitigation and vaccination.
The complete stimulus package contains a significant number of health care measures. The following is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all these measures, but rather a highlight of those that we feel may be of particular importance or interest to our clients.
Support for Providers and Hospitals
Provides $3 billion to the Provider Relief Fund, a source of funding to health care service providers who have lost revenue due to COVID-19; allows the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to distribute 85% of the grants through a process that will prioritize, among other things, a provider’s financial loss.