CMS Finalizes General Supervision Requirement for Medicare Non-Surgical Extended Duration Therapeutic Services
This Bulletin is brought to you by AHLA’s Regulation, Accreditation, and Payment Practice Group.
- December 14, 2020
- Janus Pan , Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP
Non-surgical extended duration therapeutic services (NSEDTS) are services that have a significant monitoring component that can: extend for a lengthy period of time, are not surgical, and typically have a low risk of complications after the assessment at the beginning of the service. In 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) established the minimum NSEDTS level of supervision as “direct supervision during the initiation of the service, which may be followed by general supervision at the discretion of the supervising physician or the appropriate nonphysician practitioner.” In March 2020, CMS assigned on an interim basis a minimum required level of general supervision for NSEDTS services, including during the initiation portion of the service, in response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). CMS explained that “[c]hanging the minimum default level of supervision to general supervision for NSEDTS during the initiation of the service will give providers additional flexibility they will need to handle the burdens created by the PHE for the COVID–19 pandemic.”
ARTICLE TAGS
You must be logged in to access this content.