CMS Loosens Rules for Coronavirus Testing

Medicare and Medicaid will no longer require a doctor’s prescription for COVID-19 screening

Latest Updates:

• Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries can now get tested for the coronavirus without a written order from a physician, which CMS officials say will expand the availability of COVID-19 screenings.
  
• Physicians and occupational therapists as well as speech language pathologists can provide telehealth visits, under new orders from CMS. The agency is also allowing patients and medical professionals to hold telehealth sessions over the telephone.
  

• Communities that are in phase 1 of the administration’s re-opening plan can begin to provide non COVID-19 treatments and elective procedures that have been curtailed since the coronavirus outbreak.
• Coronavirus tests will be available for Medicare beneficiaries who cannot leave their homes, and testing will be ramped up in nursing homes, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma said Monday. CMS is making several moves to relax regulations on the health care system so, for example, hospitals can treat patients in alternative sites and increase staffing.
• Medicare officials have issued an alert to all beneficiaries that scammers may try to use the coronavirus as an opportunity to steal their identities and commit Medicare fraud. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid officials reminded enrollees that Medicare will never call them to ask for their Medicare number.
• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recommends that nonessential, elective surgeries and other medical procedures be postponed during the coronavirus outbreak. CMS also asks that nonessential dental exams and procedures be postponed.
• Medicare expands telehealth options so more patients — especially older adults — can get medical advice and care while remaining in their homes and stemming the spread of the coronavirus.
• CMS tells Medicare Advantage and Part D prescription drug plans they can relax copays and other cost sharing when it comes to testing for the coronavirus.