• If you think you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus, it’s important to reach out to a healthcare provider. During this outbreak, doctors will request a detailed travel history from patients presenting symptoms of fever and acute respiratory illness. Telemedicine is an option presented through many of your health plans or an option now utilized by many traditional brick and mortar providers.

• Our employees are equipped to work from home via encrypted laptops and advanced telephony systems to ensure there are no service disruptions. We already have a strong culture of telework and workplace flexibility that makes these adjustments seamless to you and your staff.

• All HMA employees and their families have access to virtual care services for convenient, high‐quality medical care and advice.

• We have counseled our employees to transition in-person meetings with you and your teams to virtual meetings where and when appropriate. We plan to make extensive use of video-conferencing and/or conference calls; whichever best meets your business needs. Your health is our number one priority.

• In the unfortunate event that one of your members should become infected with COVID-19, know that our claims system and claims teams are prepared to support claims submitted with ICD coding referencing the coronavirus.

• By accessing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, you and your teams can have instant access to extensive resources available regarding what you should know, how the situation is evolving, information specific to different audiences, and communication resources regarding the virus. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a bulletin on February 3, 2020, to ensure that HIPAA covered entities and their business associates are aware of data sharing under the HIPAA Privacy Rule during an outbreak of infectious disease or other emergency situation, and to serve as a reminder that the protections of the Privacy Rule are not set aside during an emergency. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/february-2020-hipaa-and-novel-coronavirus.pdf

• If you are considering making changes to your leave administration policies (for example reducing the number of hours staff must work to qualify for benefits or extending their leave of absence policies), we encourage you to cross-check these changes with your SPD and to ensure that you’ve discussed these changes with counsel as well as your stop loss partner before moving forward. Should you decide to proceed, HMA will be glad to make SPD updates via an amendment to your plan.

• Our Client Success team remains your front line resource at HMA. Feel free to reach out to your Account Manager to discuss the situation and any needs you have where we can potentially assist.

• We will continually scan our book of business each morning as part of our daily operations review to monitor any special arrangements made with your business to ensure optimal support during this time of need. If you need something, don’t hesitate to ask.