Today, at President Trump's direction, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is issuing an unprecedented array of temporary regulatory waivers and new rules to equip the American health care system with maximum flexibility to respond to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Made possible by President Trump's recent emergency declaration and emergency rule making, these temporary changes will apply immediately across the entire U.S. health care system
for the duration of the emergency declaration. This allows hospitals and health systems to deliver services at other locations to make room for COVID-19 patients needing acute care in their main facility.
The changes complement and augment the work of FEMA and state and local public health authorities by empowering local hospitals and health care systems to rapidly expand treatment capacity that allows them to separate patients infected with COVID-19 from those who are not affected.
CMS's temporary actions announced today empower local hospitals and health care systems to:
- Increase Hospital Capacity - CMS Hospitals Without Walls;
- Rapidly Expand the Healthcare Workforce;
- Put Patients Over Paperwork; and
- Further Promote Telehealth in Medicare
These actions, and earlier CMS actions in response to COVID-19, are part of the ongoing White House Coronavirus Task Force efforts. To keep up with the important work the Task Force is doing in response to COVID-19, visit www.coronavirus.gov. For a complete and updated list of CMS actions, and other information specific to CMS, please visit the Current Emergencies Website.
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