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US CMS Providing Medicaid Coverage For COVID-19 Tests, But Congressman Still Sees Gaps For Testing Working Poor

 
• By Sue Darcey

The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created a new billing code to help diagnose coronavirus in its beneficiaries on 5 March, as well as fact sheets on medical care and transport of COVID-19 patients, but patients who get their health care through low-cost insurance plans may not be able to afford the testing, said a House Committee chairman.

Nurse holding test tube with blood for 2019-nCoV analyzing. Novel Chinese Coronavirus blood test Concept.

The CMS has given health care facilities a billing code for its beneficiaries’ coronavirus diagnostics – but working poor patients who have slipped through the cracks between Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage may find their “junk” plans don’t cover the test, said Rep. Richard Neal, D-MA.

“At CMS, we continue to leverage every tool at our disposal in responding to COVID-19,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma...

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