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New Emergency Preparedness Guidance Hits The Books
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You may feel like you’ve been living out your emergency preparedness plan for the past year, but you still need to keep up with EP-related survey requirements. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently issued its Updated Guidance for Emergency Preparedness- Appendix Z of the State Operations Manual (SOM), which includes provisions from two final rules on EP that CMS published in September 2019, according to a letter to state survey agencies. CMS also added “‘emerging infectious diseases’ to the definition of all-hazards approach in Appendix Z” in February 2019, the agency notes in letter QSO-21-15-ALL. “In light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency (PHE), CMS is expanding the Emergency Preparedness Interpretive Guidelines to further expand on best practices, lessons learned, and planning considerations for EIDs,” the letter says. Detail: In the document, “CMS guides that the communication plan should include all physicians and allowed practitioners involved in the patient’s care as well as any additional practitioners at [agencies] to reflect the coordinated, interdisciplinary approach to care,” points out the National Association for Home Care & Hospice in its member newsletter. The 113-page survey memo is at https://www.cms.gov/files/document/qso-21-15-all.pdf.
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New Emergency Preparedness Guidance Hits The Books
You may feel like you’ve been living out your emergency preparedness plan for the past [...]