According to the Wall Street Journal, the House of Representatives will be voting tomorrow to override the President’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act, 2021 (H.R. 6395). Under the Constitution the voting threshold for an override is 2/3s of the body. If the House votes to override, the Senate will hold its vote on Tuesday.
Tomorrow December 28 is the deadline for the President to sign the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021 (H.R. 133) without an intervening government shutdown. Congress presented the bill to the President for his signature on Christmas Eve. The President has expressed his preference for a $2,000 direct stipend instead of the bill’s $600 stipend and opposition to certain foreign aid appropriations. The Hill reports that “A bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers of Congress on Sunday reissued their call for President Trump to sign a nearly $1 trillion COVID-19 relief package [which is part of H.R. 133]— or to immediately veto it.” The House likely will pass a separate bill with the $2000 stipend tomorrow.
P.S. The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post report Sunday night that the President has signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act into law, thereby releasing COVID-19 relief and avoiding a government shutdown. Tomorrow the FEHBlog will continue his discussion of the Affordable Care Act changes in this law.
Today December 27 is the effective date for health plan coverage of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to plan members under the CARES Act. Precision Vaccinations reports that the Centers for Disease Control released updated guidance on the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA based vaccines over the weekend. The widely used guidance states that
‘Until experts learn more about the protection that COVID-19 vaccinesprovide under real-life conditions, people who decide to get vaccinated should continue to follow all current guidance to protect themselves against COVID-19 after they are vaccinated.’
As of 9 am on December 26, the CDC reported that nearly 2 million first dose of one these vaccine have been administered to subgroup 1a — front-line healthcare workers and nursing home patients.
Govexec reports that frontline postal workers will receive the COVID-19 vaccine in subgroup 1b which currently is in the on deck circle.
The exact timing of the distributions for postal workers and the logistics of delivering the shots remain in flux and will be subject to availability and state plans. States are still in their initial Phase 1a distribution to frontline health care workers and nursing home residents. Unlike several other federal agencies such as the Veterans Affairs Department and Indian Health Service, USPS was not slated to receive its own distribution of doses to vaccinate employees directly. CDC’s advisory group recommended bringing vaccination sites close to workers such as those at the Postal Service to ensure ease of access.
The FEHBlog mentioned hearing a Doctors on Demand medical director talking about the challenge in retaining mental health practitioners to handle the surge in telehealth requests for those services. The FEHBlog noted that this hub and spoke telehealth approach helpfully expands mental health provider networks for plan members.
Fierce Healthcare informs us about a research study concluding
The growth in telehealth [during the public health emergency] was not fueled by COVID-19 concerns but by visits for behavioral health issues and chronic conditions, according to a new study of Doctor On Demand data.
The largest increases in telemedicine visits during the COVID-19 pandemic were attributable to scheduled behavioral health appointments, such as therapy and psychiatry visits, and chronic illness visits, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research this month.
It is the FEHBlog’s hunch that garden variety med surg telehealth visits were conducted via direct connections between doctor and patient rather than via a hub and spoke service like Doctors on Demand. From a quality standpoint, it likely is better for the hub and spoke service to gap fill rather than serve as a primary care provider.