UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass., will begin accepting admissions to its hospital-at-home program Feb. 4 after pausing new admissions during a partial government shutdown, the health system confirmed to Becker’s.
The health system stopped accepting new hospital-at-home patients Jan. 28 as Congress weighed a federal funding package that included an extension of the CMS hospital-at-home waiver, which was set to expire Jan. 30. The partial government shutdown began Jan. 31, disrupting progress on the legislation.
President Donald Trump signed the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Act into law Feb. 3 after the House voted 217-214 to approve it, ending the three-and-a-half-day partial government shutdown. The package extends pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities through 2027 and the CMS hospital-at-home waiver through Sept. 30, 2030.
“So excited to share that – after the last 10 years of hard operational work in Hospital at Home in the United States (and frankly decades of research in the United States and abroad) – the U.S. House of Representatives just passed a five year hospital at home and two year telehealth extension,” Constantinos “Taki” Michaelidis, MD, medical director of UMass Memorial Health’s Hospital at Home program, wrote via LinkedIn Feb. 3.
He added that the move provides regulatory stability for hospital-at-home programs across the U.S. to continue investing and growing.
“Congress has done it’s job, now it’s time for us to do ours!,” he wrote.
The waiver previously lapsed when the government shutdown began Oct. 1. Congress later revived the program as part of a stopgap spending bill passed Nov. 12, extending the waiver through Jan. 30 and allowing retroactive payments.
This is the second time UMass Memorial has had to stop admissions to its hospital-at-home program due to the waiver lapsing.
