Page 6 - HME Business, May/June 2020

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airports were pretty empty; flights were sparsely attended; not as many people were at the Mandalay Bay; and Sin City looking a bit like a ghost town.
The week after the show, most events of any kind were going on hiatus. States would soon shut down, and before providers could really think about it, they would be dealing with COVID-19,
a disease that up until then had seen like it was affecting other people in other places, far away.
COVID-19’s spread was surprisingly fast. The Wuhan, China outbreak began in December 2019 and by Jan. 20 the first case in the United States was identified. On Jan. 30, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and on Jan. 31, the Trump Administration declared a Public Health Emergency. On Feb. 29, the first U.S. COVID-19 fatality was reported, and on March 11, as Medtrade West attendees were probably still working their way through their show follow-ups, WHO officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
Suddenly, providers had to think about how they would implement measures to mitigate the spread of the disease; how they would interact with patients; how they would drop off and pick up equipment; how they would work with referral partners; how they would protect their staff;
how they would comply with state stay-at-home guidelines; how they would maintain their supply chains; and how they would keep their businesses running in all this unforeseen chaos.
CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSE
With some states already implementing stay-at-home policies by mid-March, Congress quickly moved to pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was signed into law in late March, as well as the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which was signed into law in late April. The two pieces of legislation contained billions of dollars in relief that health- care providers and businesses could tap into,
as well as a series of provisions that relaxed or changed to help HME providers serve Medicare
AND
etween March 3 and 5, HME providers in the western states traveled to and from Las Vegas for Medtrade West — and they likely noticed things were a bit strange. The
6 HMEBusiness | May/June 2020 | hme-business.com
As HME businesses rapidly adapted their policies
and procedures
to respond to the COVID-19 public health emergency, Congress and CMS implemented relief programs and altered the funding environment to help providers keep serving patients. How much of this change will be permanent?
By David Kopf