ADA AND §1557 UPDATES
Throughout the summer, we are publishing the NDNRC Update on a biweekly basis.
Last week was the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and in conjunction with that anniversary, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services along with the Department of Justice issued guidance on nondiscrimination in telehealth. This new guidance provides examples of discriminatory practices, steps that providers would need to make sure healthcare is accessible via telehealth, and resources for additional information for providers and consumers.
The Affordable Care Act also addressed disability discrimination through a provision in the law – §1557. This section makes discrimination in health care settings illegal as it relates to several minority groups including the disability community. The Biden administration is reviewing the regulations which seek to enforce §1557. The HHS Office for Civil Rights has proposed new rules for the enforcement of this section and is seeking public comment on these proposed rules. You can submit public comments on the proposed rule from now through October 3, 2022.
If you want to learn more about these proposed rules, check out the blog post published by the Administration for Community Living.
In our last newsletter, we highlighted a series of interviews we conducted with AAHD board members to celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which occurred last week. These interviews can be found on both our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Direct links to all three interviews are as follows:
- July 13: Michael Hoenig
- July 20: Lisa Iezzoni
- July 28: Amy Houtrow
Additionally, you can read more about this interview series and what we did to celebrate Disability Pride Month throughout July in our news item.
As part of our partnership with Community Catalyst, we have a project which highlights opportunities for people with disabilities to get access to health coverage through Medicaid or the ACA marketplace. As part of this project, they just developed a new campaign on getting the care you need which includes resources like the gif below. These graphics are available in multiple language and can be found in this Google drive.
In prior newsletters, we have referenced what the end of the public health emergency means for Medicaid enrollees and how Medicaid redeterminations could affect people with disabilities. Last month, the Kaiser Family Foundation issued a report which examines findings from a 50 state survey and how individual state policies on the Medicaid unwinding could affect both older adults and people with disabilities.
If you want more information on the ending of the public health emergency and Medicaid unwinding, CMS has a resource page available on Medicaid.gov which includes a lot of information for how the unwinding of the continuous coverage under Medicaid will occur. This includes a communications toolkit which is available in both English and Spanish.
Our partners at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) released a report last month which shows what coverage gains could be accomplished if the Medicaid coverage gap were to close. Additionally, our partners at Community Catalyst published a blog post which examines some of the new proposals in Congress and how they would address the coverage gap as well as the expiring enhanced premium tax credits.
Archives of our weekly updates are available on the NDNRC website.