General Question for the Week of October 1, 2018

Question:

What is the point of the latest proposed rule from CMS that lifts what it calls “unnecessary” regulations?

Answer:

According to an announcement from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the primary points of the proposed rule are to “relieve the burden on healthcare providers by removing unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome Medicare compliance requirements for health care facilities.” The proposed rules includes potential changes for:

• Conditions of participation and conditions for coverage
• Emergency Preparedness policies
• Hospitals
• Critical access hospital, rural health centers, and federally qualified health centers
• Ambulatory surgical centers
• Transplant centers
• Hospices
• Comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facilities
• Community mental health centers
• Portable x-ray services
• Religious nonmedical health care institutions

The proposed rule can be found at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2018-19599.pdf.