IHA Daily Briefing: Nov. 21

In Today’s Issue
340B Payment Remedy Corrections Due Nov. 30
Register: IHA Compliance Webinars on Acute Care Hospital CoPs
Listeria, Salmonella Outbreaks Linked to Fruit
COVID-19 Information
Briefly Noted

340B Payment Remedy Corrections Due Nov. 30
On Nov. 8, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized a 340B payment remedy in response to the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in American Hospital Association v. Becerra, 142 S. Ct. 1896 (2022). CMS will provide 340B-enrolled hospitals with a one-time, budget neutral lump sum payment, paying hospitals the difference between payments it made for 340B drugs from CY 2018 through Sept. 27, 2022, and what payments would have been had the 340B payment policy not changed.

CMS estimates that Illinois 340B hospitals will receive a total lump sum payment of approximately $335 million in response to this remedy. IHA encourages 340B member hospitals to review CMS’ estimates for errors. 340B hospitals can alert CMS to potential errors in the calculation of their final lump sum repayment amount in Addendum AAA by emailing CMS at outpatientpps340b@cms.hhs.gov by 10:50 p.m. CT on Nov. 30.

Additional information on submitting technical corrections, lump-sum payments and other details of this final rule can be found in IHA’s memo summarizing the final rule.

Contact us with questions.

Register: IHA Compliance Webinars on Acute Care Hospital CoPs
The current revision of Conditions of Participation (CoPs) for acute care hospitals contains a significant number of clarifications essential for hospitals to know. To guide members through nearly 560 pages of survey standards, IHA is offering a five-part webinar series with compliance strategies to ace the next surveyor visit by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Accreditation specialist and nurse leader Lena Browning-Calloway, MHA, BSN, RNC-NIC, CSHA, will lead the webinars on Nov. 30, Dec. 5, Dec. 7, Dec. 12 and Dec. 14 (click on the dates for the topics of each webinar).
Browning-Calloway is an expert in CMS accreditation standards. During the sessions, each from noon-2 p.m., she’ll explore updated key points, including:

  • CMS’ continued enforcement of its expectations that patients and staff have a safe environment;

  • Compliance approaches for frequently cited Patient Rights CoPs;

  • Ways to reduce commonly cited deficiencies, such as infection control and accident prevention; and

  • Key issues related to a required quality assurance and performance improvement (QAPI) program, as QAPI CoP deficiencies are the third most frequently cited of the 24 CoPs for Medicare-certified hospitals.​

The webinars will benefit leaders and staff hospital-wide, from administration to legal affairs and risk management to health information management. Clinical leaders including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and dieticians are also encouraged to attend.

Nurse continuing education credit is available. Registration is per webinar and includes an unlimited number of connections within the same hospital or within the hospital system corporate office. Webinar recordings will be made available to registrants for 60 days after each webinar. Register today. 

Contact us with questions.

Listeria, Salmonella Outbreaks Linked to Fruit
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is alerting the public to a listeria outbreak linked to peaches, nectarines and plums. There have been 11 illnesses, 10 hospitalizations and one death attributed to the outbreak, which has been identified in seven states, including Illinois. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recall notice, listeria can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. It can also cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.

The CDC also recently issued an alert about a salmonella outbreak linked to cantaloupes, which has caused 43 illnesses and 17 hospitalizations in 15 states, including Illinois. The fruit was initially recalled in early November, and that recall was later expanded to include additional products. According to the FDA, salmonella can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. In rare circumstances, infection with salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.

The CDC noted that the true number of sick people is likely higher than the number reported because some people recover without medical care and are not tested.

COVID-19 Information
Since the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency on May 11, IDPH is releasing updated COVID-19 data every other week. Click here for the most recent hospitalization update. IDPH will continue to report the weekly number of people with COVID-19 admitted to hospitals from emergency departments, deaths and vaccinations, as well through the dashboard of the Illinois Wastewater Surveillance System.

The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced this week that every home in the U.S. is now eligible to order an additional four free at-⁠home COVID-19 tests beginning Nov. 20. If you did not order tests this fall, you may place two orders for a total of eight tests.

Briefly Noted
Last week, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the establishment of the HHS Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Long COVID. The advisory committee will bring perspectives from outside the government to make recommendations on research and innovation for a whole-of-government response to the longer-term impacts of COVID-19 and associated conditions. Today, HHS announced that nominations for the Long COVID Advisory Committee can now be submitted for through Jan. 16. Please see the Federal Register Notice for more details and information on how to apply.