CMS Revisions to Emergency Preparedness Rule (Published 9/30/19)

To: Administrators

From: Greg Schlosser, Branch Chief, Health Facility Quality and Education

On September 30, CMS published a final rule on proposed revisions to the emergency preparedness requirements. Here is the background.

- September 16, 2016: Emergency Preparedness Final Rule published
- November 15, 2017: Implementation; surveyors began surveying for EP rule
- September 16, 2018: CMS issued a proposed rule that included revisions to emergency preparedness requirements; their goal was to reduce the regulatory burden on providers and suppliers by eliminating or reforming regulations.
- September 30, 2019. CMS published the final rule, which you can find at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/09/30/2019-20736/medicare-and-medicaid-programs-regulatory-provisions-to-promote-program-efficiency-transparency-and


In a nutshell, here are the changes in the final rule:
1. Emergency Program: Decreased requirements for facilities to conduct an annual review of your emergency program biennially (every two years). Nursing facilities are still required to review their emergency programs annually.
2. Emergency Plans: Facilities no longer have to document their efforts to contact local, tribal, regional, State and Federal emergency preparedness officials and facility's participation in collaborative and cooperative planning efforts. The process for collaborating/cooperating with officials still exists.
3. Training Requirements: Decreased the training requirement from annually to every two years for all providers except nursing facilities, which are still required to provide training annually to their staff,
4. Testing Requirements:
- For inpatient providers: 2 exercises per year are still required, but the types of acceptable testing exercises have expanded. One exercise must still be a community-based or facility-based exercise, but the second exercise can be an exercise of your choice: a drill, a tabletop exercise, or a workshop.
- For outpatient providers: Only one testing exercise is required annually. Every other year facility must participate in a community-based full-scale exercise or facility-based functional exercise. In the opposite years, these providers may choose the testing exercise of their choice.

To download a graphic of these changes, prepared by Mesa County and HFEMSD, please go to https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2gUPtvZhRwTNHJLaVdpT2VyS09iZmdhOWJkcFhkcW1UOHVn/view?usp=sharing

If you have questions about the regulations, please contact Melanie Roth at Melanie.Roth-Lawson@state.co.us or 303-692-2819.