New Requirement to Provide Good Faith Estimates to Uninsured Patients
Starting January 2022, health centers must provide uninsured patients with a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) of the total out-of-pocket costs they will incur for care within 1 to 3 days of the patient scheduling the care or requesting the GFE. View a preliminary analysis of these new regulatory requirements. The document will be expanded later this month. The requirement was established by an Interim Final Rule (IFR) by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services implementing the “No Surprises Act” enacted in December 2020.
Toolkit on Federal Vaccine Mandates
Colleen Meiman, National Policy Advisor for State & Regional Associations of Community Health Centers, has released an updated toolkit for health centers that consolidates the information and resources available to date around the impending Federal vaccine mandate for health care employers and workers that is expected to be published this month. The toolkit will be updated as additional information becomes available. It contains:
- A set of FAQs. For many of these questions, there are no answers yet. (These are being shared with federal administrators to be addressed in the interim final rule.)
- Links to resources to address vaccine hesitancy specifically among health care workers.
- Information around medical exemptions, including how health centers can respond to patient requests.
- Sample documents from a health center that has already announced a vaccine requirement.