End of Public Health Emergency educational sessions available

Posted on: 3/17/23

OHA will offer members two webinar opportunities in March to help hospitals prepare for the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency.

March 21, 2 p.m. - Medicaid Unwinding (FREE)

To assist states in their Public Health Emergency (PHE) response and support access to coverage and care, Congress provided enhanced federal funding to state Medicaid programs of 6.2 percentage points. This funding was linked to the PHE and required that states meet a number of conditions, including providing continuous eligibility. States, therefore, have not conducted eligibility redeterminations for the entirety of the PHE.

With the end of the Public Health Emergency, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority will be making eligibility determinations and disenrolling non-eligible people over the next several months. It is important that hospitals be aware of this process and informed of resources available to patients that may be seeking services.

Please join us for a complimentary webinar on this subject given by the state Medicaid director at the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, Traylor Rains, at 2 p.m., Tuesday, March 21.

To register for the March 21 webinar, click here.

March 28, 10 a.m. – Operational Implications ($200)

The Department of Health and Human Services is planning for the federal public health emergency for COVID-19 to expire Thursday, May 11. Since the beginning of the public health emergency declaration three years ago, hospitals and other providers have relied on waivers of certain laws and government enforcement discretion as they have conducted pandemic-era operations. Now, the flexibility health care providers have become accustomed to is ending. Hear from a seasoned panel of health care attorneys about how to prepare. This panel session will provide practical guidance that hospitals can use to unwind reliance on these flexibilities. The session will include a detailed explanation of the blanket waivers of Medicare’s conditions of participation, telehealth waivers, fraud and abuse waivers, agency enforcement discretion, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability, and Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act implications.

To register for “The End of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Is Coming: Is Your Hospital Ready for the Regulatory Environment to Return to Normal?” March 28 webinar, click here. (LaWanna Halstead, Mary Winters)