Governor Greg Abbott announced Sunday that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission submitted a waiver to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to support health care workers during the COVID-19 outbreak, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
The waiver allows “flexibility in administering Medicaid to mitigate potential health care workforce shortages” amid the coronavirus pandemic, the governor’s office says.
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“We are committed to supporting our front-line medical workers and reducing regulatory burdens that could otherwise hinder their service to Texans,” said Governor Abbott in a statement. “The waiver we are requesting will alleviate potential staffing and resource shortages and ensure our health care workers and facilities are fully equipped to provide care to Texans in need throughout the COVID-19 response.”
According to the governor’s office, if the waiver is approved, the flexibilities would include:
- Allowing fully trained, qualified nurse aides to provide home health and hospice services even if they have not been employed and paid as an aide within the preceding 24 months, which will help expand the eligible pool of direct care workers and help providers facing any critical staffing shortages.
- Allowing non-clinical staff to provide feeding assistance to residents in nursing facilities without completing the required 16-hour training course. Since group meals are no longer served due to social distancing, additional feeding assistants are needed for one-on-one assistance. These assistants would be supervised and assigned only to non-complex cases.
- Allowing individuals with intellectual disabilities in the Home and Community-based Services and Intermediate Care Facility programs to temporarily receive their same services in either setting. This will give providers greater flexibility to meet staffing and resource challenges while continuing to provide critical services in both programs.
The waiver’s flexibilities would remain in place for as long as necessary if approved, the governor’s office says.
COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new virus, stands for coronavirus disease 2019. The disease first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, but spread around the world in early 2020, causing the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic in March.
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