CMS Releases Updates for FQHC Emergency Preparedness Requirements

On September 26, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Omnibus Burden Reduction (Conditions of Participation) Final Rule, which removes Medicare regulations identified as unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome on healthcare providers to reduce inefficiencies.

The final rule would reduce burden for federally-qualified health centers (FQHCs) as participating suppliers in the following ways:

Emergency Preparedness:

Emergency program: CMS decreased the requirements for facilities to conduct an annual review of their emergency program to a biennial review.

Emergency plan: CMS eliminated the requirement that the emergency plan include documentation of efforts to contact local, tribal, regional, State, and federal emergency preparedness officials and a facility’s participation in collaborative and cooperative planning efforts;

Training: Decreased the training requirement from annually to every two years.

Testing: Decreased the requirement for facilities to conduct two testing exercises to one testing exercise annually.

All the other requirements in 42 CFR §491.12 (CMS Emergency Preparedness final rule) remain the same.