The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on 6 April a long series of exemptions from usual payment regulations it is permitting for extended telehealth technology use to protect health care providers as the coronavirus crisis continues. A second part of the interim final rule provides special lab specimen collection fees to be paid to independent laboratories when they retrieve COVID-19 tests from homebound and non-hospital health care facility inpatients.
The changes – which are retroactive to include episodes of care and dates of service beginning on 1 March 2020 – are aimed at giving providers and the Medicare and...