Regulation of provider networks in response to COVID-19.

In public health insurance programs, federal and state regulators use network adequacy standards to ensure that health plans provide enrollees with adequate access to care. These standards are based on provider availability, anticipated enrollment, and patterns of care delivery. We anticipate that the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic will have 3 main effects on provider networks and their regulation: enrollment changes, changes to the provider landscape, and changes to care delivery. Regulators will need to ensure that plans adjust their network size should there be increased enrollment or increased utilization caused by forgone care. Regulators will also require updated monitoring data and plan network data that reflect postpandemic provider availability. Telehealth will have a larger role in care delivery than in the prepandemic period, and regulators will need to adapt network standards to accommodate in-person and virtual care delivery.

Medicare payment policy in skilled nursing facilities: Lessons from a history of mixed success.

The current policy environment for rehabilitation in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) is complex and dynamic, and SNFs are facing the dual challenges of recent Medicare payment policy change that disproportionately impacts rehabilitation for older adults and the COVID-19 pandemic. This article introduces an adapted framework based on Donabedian's model for evaluating quality of care and applies it to decades of Medicare payment policy to provide a historical view of how payment policy changes have impacted rehabilitation processes and patient outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries in SNFs. This review demonstrates how SNF responses to Medicare payment policy have historically varied based on organizational factors, highlighting the importance of considering such organizational factors in monitoring policy response and patient outcomes. This historical perspective underscores the mixed success of previous Medicare policies impacting rehabilitation and patient outcomes for older adults receiving care in SNFs and can help in predicting SNF industry response to current and future Medicare policy changes.

Long-Term Implications of Post-ACA Health Reform on State Health Care Policy.

In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, health care reform has again taken a major role in the 2020 election, with Democrats weighing Medicare for All against extensions of the Affordable Care Act, while Republicans quietly seem to favor proposals that would eliminate much of the ACA and cut Medicaid. Although states play a major role in health care funding and administration, public and scholarly debates over these proposals have generally not addressed the potential disruption that reform proposals might create for the current state role in health care. We examine how potential reforms influence state-federal relations, and how outside factors like partisanship and exogenous shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic interact with underlying preferences of each level of government. All else equal, reforms that expand the ACA within its current framework would provide the least disruption for current arrangements and allow for smoother transitions for providers and patients, rather than the more radical restructuring proposed by Medicare for All or the cuts embodied in Republican plans.

Improving Healthcare Value: COVID-19 Emergency Regulatory Relief and Implications for Post-Acute Skilled Nursing Facility Care.

Rarely, if ever, does a national healthcare system experience such rapid and marked change as that seen with the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the president of the United States declared a national health emergency, enabling the Department of Health & Human Services authority to grant temporary regulatory waivers to facilitate efficient care delivery in a variety of healthcare settings. The statutory requirement that Medicare beneficiaries stay three consecutive inpatient midnights to qualify for post-acute skilled nursing facility coverage is one such waiver. This so-called Three Midnight Rule, dating back to the 1960s as part of the Social Security Act, is being scrutinized more than half a century later given the rise in observation hospital stays. Despite the tragic emergency circumstances prompting waivers, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Congress now have a unique opportunity to evaluate potential improvements revealed by COVID-19 regulatory relief and should consider permanent reform of the Three Midnight Rule.