December 11, 2017
Due to the devastating impacts of several recent natural disasters, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is granting exceptions for Medicare quality reporting requirements to ASCs located in affected areas.
- ASCs Affected by Hurricane Nate: CMS will grant exceptions to ASCs located in eight counties in Alabama and four counties in Mississippi, all of which were affected by Hurricane Nate.
- ASCs Affected by Hurricane Irma: CMS is granting exceptions to ASCs located in areas affected by Hurricane Irma, and has updated its list of affected localities to include 31 additional counties/Indian reservations in South Carolina and eight additional municipios in Puerto Rico.
- ASCs Affected by the Northern California Wildfires: CMS is granting exceptions to ASCs located in areas affected by the October 2017 Northern California wildfires, and has updated its list of affected localities to include one additional California county.
ASCs located in these areas, all of which that have been designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as major disaster localities, will receive exceptions without having to submit an extraordinary circumstances exception (ECE) request. ASCs located outside these areas may request an exception.