Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

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On April 18, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced its plan to maintain access to COVID-19 vaccines and treatment following the end of the Public Health Emergency on May 11, 2023. The “HHS Bridge Access Program for COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatments” is a $1.1 billion public-private partnership between HHS, pharmacy chains, and drug manufacturers. Essentially, HHS and drug manufacturers will provide COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, like Paxlovid and Lagevrio, to pharmacy chains, which will administer them to individuals without insurance at no cost.

Under the program, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”), will use its existing authority under Section 317 of the Public Health Service Act to purchase and distribute COVID-19 vaccines and allocate them through its network of 64 state and local health departments, as well as through Health Resources and Services Administration (“HRSA”) supported health centers.Continue Reading HHS Proposes Bridge Access Program for COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatments

On May 18, 2021, in a statement issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Inspector General, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, Phillip Talbert, and California Attorney General, Rob Bonta (the Statement), the health care industry was reminded of the prohibition against charging individuals for COVID-19…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released official diagnosis coding guidance for health care encounters and deaths related to the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), potentially in anticipation of more frequent cases in the United States. The guidance identifies specific ICD-10-CM codes to be used to code encounters.

CDC advises that patients presenting…

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), although there have been imported cases of Covid-19 detected in the United States, “at this time, the virus is NOT currently spreading in the community in the United States.”[1]  However, on Tuesday, February 25, 2020, Nancy Messonier, the CDC’s Director of National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, urged American businesses and families to start preparing for the possibility of a large outbreak, noting that the virus spread quickly once it appeared in other countries.[2]  Although the World Health Organization (WHO) still has not called Covid-19 a pandemic, Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s health emergencies program, suggests that countries need to be doing everything they can to contain the virus, at least in order to buy some time.[3]

To that end, the CDC has been tapping some of its quarantine powers.  CDC has authority to oversee quarantine and isolation of persons who carry communicable diseases, derived from the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and codified in section 361 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. § 264).[4]  The CDC’s authority, however, is limited to persons arriving in the United States or traveling between states.  Each state has its own laws regarding quarantine powers, and the CDC also relies on state authorities to implement and enforce quarantine orders.  There is some risk that state health authorities could act in a manner that is inconsistent with the intentions of the CDC (to be more or less restrictive).  The CDC has not issued a large-scale isolation and quarantine since the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.[5]Continue Reading Potential Tensions Lie Ahead Between Federal and State Authorities Over the Application of CDC Quarantine Powers

As has been the tradition for incoming administrations, the Trump Administration has ordered a regulatory freeze and review of final rules published by the Obama Administration that had not yet gone into effect.  In a January 20, 2017 memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a final rule to strengthen the federal government’s ability to prevent the introduction, transmission, and spread of communicable diseases into the United States and interstate. The regulation is intended to both aid public health responses to outbreaks of new or re-emerging communicable diseases and provide …

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is inviting comments on the development of guidance regarding an ACA provision requiring a health risk assessment to be included in the annual Medicare wellness visit benefit. CDC is collaborating with CMS to develop guidance for this type of assessment (which the CDC notes also may…