CMS Releases Guidance for How Health Systems Can Restart Elective Procedures

As new cases COVID-19 begin to flatten or subside in certain areas, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released new guidance for how health systems can restart elective procedures. In the guidance, CMS recommends a gradual transition based on testing capacity, workforce availability, and readiness.

“CMS recognizes that at this time many areas have a low, or relatively low and stable incidence of COVID-19, and that it is important to be flexible and allow facilities to provide care for patients needing non-emergent, non-COVID-19 healthcare. In addition, as states and localities begin to stabilize, it is important to restart care that is currently being postponed, such as certain procedural care (surgeries and procedures), chronic disease care, and, ultimately, preventive care,” according to a CMS statement.

CMS cautioned that any decision to resume procedures will be up to local and state authorities.

Here is a summary of some of the other reccommendations in the new guidance:

• Staff should also be routinely screened for COVID-19 and tested and quarantined
• Healthcare providers and staff wear surgical facemasks at all times
• Providers should prioritize surgical/procedural care and high-complexity chronic disease management
• Facilities should consider establishing Non-COVID Care (NCC) zones that would screen all patients for symptoms of COVID-19, including temperature checks
• Require patients to wear a cloth face covering that can be bought or made at home if they don’t already have a surgical mask.

The full guidance, which is Part 1 of the Trump Administration’s “Opening Up American Again” campaign, can be found on the COVID-19 guidance and information section on the CMS homepage.

Also this week, in a letter to its membership, American Academy of Ophthalmology CEO, Dr. David Parke II, stated that now is the time to consider the process of reopening ophthalmology care—on a local and regional basis.

“While the Academy made a national recommendation to curtail ophthalmic practice, the decisions to reopen more normal practice will be local and regional. They will be based on local and state governments, on public health authorities interpreting local patterns of disease, on testing availability, on institutional policies and ultimately on individual ophthalmologists. While we closed routine practice nationally, we will open locally,” Dr. Parke stated.

In the upcoming weeks, AAO said it will issue guidance detailing specifically how to approach and manage some of the key decisions in reopening more normal practice in the COVID-19 era.