WHITE HOUSE:

With the White House preoccupied with the President’s Covid diagnosis, it was relatively quiet in DC this week. The primary focus was more efforts to strengthen cybersecurity, making communities “safer” and signing a Congressional bill to lower the price on baby formula. Two items of note, both of which may indirectly benefit the industry:

• The White House announced a series of executive actions on climate change. For our purposes, this includes updated, specific guidance from HHS’ ACF (Administration for Children & Families) that authorizes states (& other recipients of the program) to use Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funding to partner with local community centers in developing communal cooling centers for use during the day. The formal guidance can be accessed here (PDF). While LIHEAP is specifically meant for individual households, with the new guidance, there may be opportunities for facilities to use the funding to revamp HVAC systems at the state level to establish cooling centers.

• They announced that more than 1 million households have signed up for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a program designed to help low-income families access high speed internet. While not designed for facilities, this can help the families of your residents access a more reliable, stable internet connection, and they may appreciate hearing about it from you. The website is getinternet.gov.

CONGRESS/ELECTIONS:

With the January 6^th hearings wrapping up till the fall and Congress pushing up against the August recess deadline (currently scheduled for August 5^th, although it can be pushed back by Congressional leadership), Congress continued their push on two pieces of legislation they want to get done:

• Reconciliation - as we mentioned last week, Senator Manchin said he won’t support any climate change action in the bill, essentially limiting the party-line bill to a (relatively) small healthcare only bill, which has the President’s approval. There are several procedural hurdles that still need to be cleared, and it can, of course, blow up politically, but for now the bill is on track for passage in the next few weeks. This is a fairly good summary of what’s left in the bill, but for the most part, it leaves the industry unscathed.

• A bipartisan “Chips+” bill that would invest significant resources in developing domestic capacity to manufacture semiconductor chips.

Several Congressional offices, from both sides of the aisle, are starting to put pressure on USCIS to deal with the backlog of immigration requests. While the focus, for now, is on constituent services within the districts, hopefully it can lead to more broader movement on expediting H-1B visa applications.

A few items of note on the elections front:

• It took until late Friday evening, but Wes Moore won the Democratic primary race for Maryland Governor. With the popular current Republican Governor termed out, Maryland represents one of the Democrats best hopes to flip a gubernatorial race.
• Several election forecast sites, including 538 and the Cook Report (unfortunately behind a paywall), have noticed slight gains for the Democrats over the last few weeks. While the GOP remains heavily favored to take the House, it may not be as overwhelming as once thought. The Senate remains a toss-up.
• Plum committee assignments often go towards elected officials who can also fundraise well. To that end, it’s notable that Congressman Vern Buchanan (R – FL) is outraising his potential rivals for top spot on the Ways & Means committee should the GOP take back the House.

AGENCIES:

Following on the heels of a Washington Post report, HHS announced that the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response will be elevated into the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), a move that centralizes pandemic response into a new division that is on par with CMS, FDA, HRSA, etc. In theory, this should streamline any response to future pandemics, although, in practice, it will take several years to see how the division of responsibilities plays out.

The OIG at HHS released an audit of life safety codes related to sprinkler systems and other emergency preparedness requirements for SNF’s. The summary can be found here (PDF). The full report can be downloaded here (PDF).

Traditionally, CMS has released the final yearly SNF payment rule before August, which would be sometime this week. You can read the comment to the rule from eCap Intel cofounder Marc Zimmet here (LinkedIN registration required). In the meantime, CMS announced a new set of voluntary quality measures for Home & Community Based Services. You can read the formal letter (directed to state Medicaid Directors) here (PDF), but essentially the goal is to create a standardized, national way to compare HCBS services across the county.

As a reminder, CMS will hold the third in their series of webinars on the PHE “unwinding”. You can access a ZIP file containing the presentation and transcripts from the last meeting here. You can register for the webinar here.

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) publishes a weekly online collection of articles related to patient safety. This week they highlighted a study on the communications among nursing home teams.

OTHER:

On the non-agency front:

• MEDPac (an independent Congressional Agency that advises Congress on the Medicare program) released their yearly analysis of Medicare spending. The hefty 208-page report can be accessed here (PDF).
• Dr. David Grabowski, among others, published an analysis of just how negatively impacted SNF’s have been during Covid-19 outbreaks, calling for more investment from Congress in staffing initiatives.
• The Kaiser Family Foundation created an interactive map on the status of Medicaid expansion across the country, a useful tool to understand the Medicaid population in each state.
• The 19^th (an online news site), relying on data from AARP, ran an article highlighting the disproportionate impact that Covid continue to pose on SNF’s.

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Do you really want to know what’s happening in the industry? Register now for the upcoming “Lights, Camera, Reimbursement!” Zimmet Healthcare conference, taking place August 10^th & 11^th at Mohegan Sun.