11/10/2020

Today's COVID-19 Report: Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Here are the latest need-to-know updates for Wednesday, November 11 regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Today's Report

• CMS takes steps to ensure Medicare beneficiaries have wide access to COVID-19 antibody treatment
• More on the holidays and celebrating safely; participate in survey through Thursday
  
• Promoting quality of life among rural older adults
  

CMS takes steps to ensure Medicare beneficiaries have wide access to COVID-19 antibody treatment

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that starting November 10, Medicare beneficiaries can receive coverage of monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID-19 with no cost-sharing during the Public Health Emergency (PHE). CMS’ coverage of monoclonal antibody infusions applies to bamlanivimab, which received an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA on November 9.

CMS anticipates that this monoclonal antibody product will initially be given to health care providers at no charge. Medicare will not pay for the monoclonal antibody products that providers receive for free, but this action provides for reimbursement for the infusion of the product. When health care providers begin to purchase monoclonal antibody products, Medicare anticipates setting the payment rate in the same way it set the payment rates for COVID-19 vaccines, such as based on 95% of the average wholesale price for COVID-19 vaccines in many provider settings. CMS will issue billing and coding instructions for health care providers in the coming days.

CMS anticipates the announcement will allow for a broad range of providers and suppliers, including freestanding and hospital-based infusion centers, home health agencies, nursing homes, and entities with whom nursing homes contract, to administer this treatment in accordance with the EUA, and bill Medicare to administer these infusions.

More on the holidays and celebrating safely; participate in survey through Thursday

In the Monday edition of Today's COVID-19 Report, we featured tips from the Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC) on safe holiday gatherings and travel. This hot topic remains at the top of the dialogue with LeadingAge Ohio members, as cases soar while the holiday season approaches. On Monday, LeadingAge released an article that reviewed member solutions for a COVID-safe Thanksgiving and the CDC also released a companion article.

LeadingAge continues to gather members’ ideas and solutions for the complex circumstance of how to encourage families to reconnect and reunite safely over the holidays, without unduly exposing the people we serve to COVID-19. To this extent, LeadingAge has released a survey, and we encourage all LeadingAge Ohio members to participate. The Community Holiday Plan Survey will be live through Thursday, and the hopes are to find and add more solutions and member resources to a growing list. 

Promoting quality of life among rural older adults

“We have to stop referring to ‘age in place’—which implies a solitary existence—and focus more on offering rural older adults the opportunity to ‘age in community,’ even if they are living in their long-time, single-family, detached homes.” This, per LeadingAge’s Robyn Stone, is an important action for addressing the needs of rural older adults. This month’s LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston November 2020 Research Update covers Promoting Quality of Life among Rural Older Adults and a number of other topics of interest.

Questions

Please send all questions to COVID19@leadingageohio.org. Additionally, members are encouraged to visit the LeadingAge Ohio COVID-19 Working Group facebook group to pose questions to peers and share best practices. LeadingAge is continuing its daily calls for all members.  To participate in these daily online updates, members should register here.  

LeadingAge Ohio is working to ensure that the information in our daily alerts, on our website, and all coronavirus-related communications is as accurate as possible. However, LeadingAge Ohio makes no guarantees about the accuracy of the information.