Omnibus bill passes

David Ermer–ACA, Congress, COVID-19, No Surprises Act, Uncategorized–

Per Roll Call, the House of Representatives followed the Senate by passing the Consolidated Apppropriations Act 2023 and the one week further extension of the continuing resolution to December 30, 2023. The 117th Congress has completed its work.

The Centers for Disease Control will not be published its weekly interpretation of Covid statistics until next year as today and next Friday precede three day weekends.

The CDC did update its Covid data tracker and Fluview which happens on Thursdays. The new daily Covid cases and deaths for the week ending December 22 averaged approximately 69,600 cases and 420 deaths. “Seasonal influenza activity remains high but is declining in most areas.” As noted in yesterday post, RSV cases appear to have peaked.

In No Surprises Act news, the Labor Department’s Employee Benefit Administration announced this afternoon

  • Effective January 1, 2023, the administrative cost for holding an arbitration under an independent dispute resolution process will increase from $50 per party to $350 per party. That should tamp down the number of NSA arbitrations.
  • ACA FAQs 56 concerning the NSA prescription drug reporting that health plans, including FEHB plans, are scheduled to submit next Tuesday, December 27, for the 2020 and 2021 plan years. Significantly,

For the 2020 and 2021 data submissions that are due by December 27, 2022, the Departments will not take enforcement action with respect to any plan or issuer that uses a good faith, reasonable interpretation of the regulations and the Prescription Drug Data Collection (RxDC) Reporting Instructions in making its submission. The Departments are also providing a submission grace period through January 31, 2023, and will not consider a plan or issuer to be out of compliance with these requirements provided that a good faith submission of 2020 and 2021 data is made on or before that date.

  • Initial Report on the Independent Dispute Resolution Process: April 15 – September 30, 2022.

The FEHBlog will release Cybersecurity Saturday on December 24 and the Holiday weekend update on December 26. Merry Christmas and of course Jingle Bells.