The Health and Human Services Commission and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are waiving certain regulatory requirements in response to Harvey .
Read the full document in PDF format.
Waiver for Home and Community Support Services Agencies (HCSSAs):
Home Health - OASIS Transmission Requirements
Waiver of Federal Requirement
CMS has authority under the 1135 waiver to modify the Outcome and Assessment
Information Set (OASIS) transmission requirements for Medicare-certified home health
agencies. See I-2 question and response in the CMS FAQ document. If you have a
specific waiver request related to OASIS transmission requirements, please contact the
CMS regional office as described below.
Hospice - Exceeding Licensed Capacity
Waiver of State Licensure Requirement
Inpatient hospice facilities may exceed license capacity by up to 10% after the request is
approved by the DADS Director of Survey Operations. Requests for additional capacity
increases over 10% will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Email all requests for
exceeding license capacity to Linda Lothringer at linda.lothringer@hhsc.state.tx.us.
Hospice -Admission, Transfer and Discharge
Waiver of State Licensure Requirement
Until this notice is rescinded, inpatient hospice facilities do not need to comply with state
admission, transfer, and discharge notification rules for residents being evacuated as a
result of Harvey. During an evacuation, the evacuating facility retains responsibility for
the care of their evacuated residents. As such, discharge notification and
transfer/admission paperwork would not apply.
The Texas Association for Home Care and Hospice (TAHC&H) is working with both our state and federal partners to ensure reasonable regulatory application during this period of disaster response and recovery. CMS sent the following information about agency specific waiver requests that you will need to follow for specific agency situations. We are working with CMS right now to issue some limited blanket waivers for all affected agencies and affected beneficiaries and will distribute as they become available. Additionally, we are working with our state partners on waivers to EVV requirements during this time and will distribute those instructions when received.