| Covid-19 | May 15, 2020

COVID-19 Emergency Declaration Blanket Waivers for Health Care Providers

This document outlines COVID-19 emergency declaration “blanket waivers” for healthcare providers and is regularly updated by CMS. The May 11 update includes several new flexibilities, including, for example:• Relaxed requirements for hospitals to offer “swing-bed” services to patients who qualify for SNF-level care, subject to certain restrictions;• Reduced training requirements for paid feeding assistants in LTC facilities; and,• Expanded the list of clinicians who may perform home health initial and comprehensive assessments (prior waiver added OTs, new waiver adds PTs and speech language pathologists).