State Updates
Governor Cuomo Announces Nursing Home Testing Support, Expanded State Testing Capacity
Today (May 18th), Governor Cuomo held a press conference during which he announced that new hospitalizations and deaths related to COVID-19 continue to decline in New York State, with 373 new hospitalizations and 106 deaths reported yesterday. To assist nursing homes with meeting the requirements the State established on May 11th by Executive Order 202.30, including the mandate to test all personnel twice per week, NYS will connect nursing homes with laboratories that have reserved at least 35,000 tests per day for this purpose and send a total of 320,000 test kits to nursing homes across New York this week. The Governor also announced that a sixth region, Western New York, has met all seven metrics and will be permitted to begin Phase One of the State’s reopening plan tomorrow.
Over the weekend, the Governor announced that New York State now has capacity to conduct 40,000 diagnostic tests per day and has more than 700 testing sites statewide. The State is also partnering with CVS to bring testing to more than 60 pharmacy locations, each with the capacity to conduct more than 50 tests per day. As a result, the State has broadened the scope of individuals eligible to receive COVID-19 testing to include all individuals who would return to the workplace as part of Phase One of the reopening plan. The State launched a new website (available here) which New Yorkers can use to find their nearest COVID-19 testing site and has partnered with Google Maps to display testing sites when individuals search “COVID testing near me” on the app.
The Governor’s press release on testing capacity is available here.
Updated Guidance Documents
Recently released or revised New York State and City guidance documents are listed below:
- NYS DOH SARS-CoV-2 Diagnostic Testing (5.15.20)
- COVID-19 Updates (5.15.20)
- Updated NYC Health Department Recommendations for Identifying and Testing Patients with Suspected COVID-19 (5.15.20)
- Updated COVID-19 Billing Guidance for OMH-Licensed Clinic Programs (5.15.20)
- OMH Employee Wellness During COVID-19 (5.14.20)
- Supervised Residential Habilitation & Updated Flexibilities for Documenting Day Services (5.14.20)
- COVID-19 Testing Next Steps Flyer (5.12.20)
Federal Update
CMS Releases COVID-19 Medicaid Managed Care Guidance
On May 14th, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a bulletin titled, “Medicaid Managed Care Options in Responding to COVID-19,” which highlighted options for states’ Medicaid managed care contracts in light of the COVID-19 public health emergency, such as:
- An expedited rate amendment pathway through adjusting capitation rates solely to reflect temporary increases in Medicaid fee-for-service (FFS) provider payment rates where an approved state directed payment requires plans to pay FFS rates;
- Requiring managed care plans to make certain retainer payments allowable under existing authorities to certain habilitation and personal care providers to maintain provider capacity and access to services; and,
- Utilizing state directed payments to require managed care plans to temporarily enhance provider payment under the contract.
CMS has also indicated that the agency will consider state requests to retroactively amend or implement risk mitigation strategies, such as a 2-sided risk corridor. The bulletin is available here.