The healthcare field and others have been advised by the US government that the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) will end on May 11, 2023.  CMS has recently issued guidance (see the links below) for addressing the changes related to this process and its results.

Many healthcare providers (hospitals and many others indicated in the following reference) availed themselves of the Coronavirus waivers & flexibilities that resulted from this PHE.  This CMS document was most recently modified on February 1, 2023.  This updated document also includes links to over 40 resources that could be useful to some readers’ organizations.

CMS also updated a very useful guidance document entitled Creating a Roadmap for the End of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (starting in 2020) with many updates since then.  The most recent update occurred on February 1, 2023.

Another recent (also updated February 1, 2023), very detailed 29-page CMS publication entitled Hospitals and CAHs (including Swing Beds, DPUs), ASCs and CMHCs: CMS Flexibilities to Fight COVID-19 addresses numerous aspects of these topics.  The topics addressed include but are not limited to:

• Payments after the end of the PHE
• Outpatient settings
• Telehealth
• CMS hospitals without walls and related post-PHE ASC decisions
• Physical environment flexibilities
• Life Safety Code waivers
• Hospital outpatients
• Along with numerous variations of sites
• Along with numerous expected process changes.