Much Needed Changes
COVID is on the front of a lot of people’s minds right now. Whether it is out of concern, apathy or confusion, there are a lot of questions swirling around the novel coronavirus.
Recently some changes were made to the terms and viability of Medicare among the Coronavirus pandemic.
In the outline of the changes, they specified how improvements and stronger availability for testing are being implemented.
The focus is for more and more states to have stronger options for widespread testing. CMS wants to see more people being given the options for getting easier testing.
No Waiting Period Required
These changes will be implemented immediately, so if you have Medicare and have had issues with testing, this is good news.
Under these new rules and guidelines, the patient no longer requires a letter of approval. Meaning that if your tending physician doesn’t see a need for you to get tested, but you want to get tested anyways, you can now.
Effectively, CMS will pay hospitals for the changes and help transition over the changes for people that will be affected by it.
In Summary
Overall, this is a good change for CMS and Medicare guidelines. An issue facing the previous rules for Medicare was how testing was completely misaligned and did not work all the time.
Additionally, it made it very difficult for seniors who considered themselves at higher risk, and were struggling to get any test.
Luckily, CMS’s changes are going to make that easier for seniors and those with preexisting conditions.
Stay tuned here at Scoophash for more updates on Medicare and CMS!
