AANP-Update on CARES Act and Home Health

As you probably have seen, section 3708 of the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES ACT) which was passed by Congress and was signed into law last Friday removed the federal barriers which prevented nurse practitioners from documenting Medicare home health care face-to-face assessments and certifying and recertifying patient eligibility. The new law also requires Medicaid to adhere to this change. This has been a top legislative priority of AANP for over a decade, and we thank all of you for your tireless effort and advocacy to remove this barrier to patient care.

We want to provide some additional information to ensure that section 3708 is implemented as quickly and seamlessly as possible. The most common question that we have received is when does this provision become effective? Per the CARES Act, CMS must finalize rulemaking within 6 months of passage of the legislation. AANP is currently working with CMS on potential ways to expedite this process and will provide updates as they become available.

Additionally, while this section removes the federal barriers for Medicare and Medicaid patients, consistent with longstanding language in the Social Security Act, an NP still must be practicing in accordance with state law to provide these services. The majority of state nurse practice acts authorize NPs to broadly provide services and refer patients; however, we anticipate that some states may require updates, including to Medicaid regulations and state plan amendments, to address any state language that may inhibit NPs in your state from performing these services once they are implemented at the federal level. We will also provide additional resources to NPs to ensure that they are aware of the changes and the subsequent billing and documentation requirements.

We will work closely with our NPO leaders throughout this process. If you have additional questions please reach out to AANP's federal government affairs team at governmentaffairs@aanp.org and the state government affairs team at statepolicy@aanp.org.

Thank you, MaryAnne Sapio, VP of Federal Government Affairs Tay Kopanos, VP of State Government Affairs