February 2, 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Department of Energy (DOE) proposes to amend its regulations for the timely coordination of Federal Authorizations for proposed interstate electric transmission facilities pursuant to section 216(h) of the Federal Power Act (FPA). The proposed amendments are intended to improve the pre-application procedures and result in more efficient processing of applications.

This final rule revises the Medicaid home health service definition consistent with section 6407 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (the Affordable Care Act) and section 504 of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) to add requirements that, for home health services, physicians document, and, for certain medical equipment, physicians or certain authorized non-physician practitioners (NPP) document the occurrence of a face-to- face encounter (including through the use of telehealth) with the Medicaid eligible beneficiary within reasonable timeframes. This rule also aligns the timeframes for the face-to-face encounter with similar regulatory requirements for Medicare home health services. In addition, this rule amends the definitions of medical supplies, equipment, and appliances. We expect minimal impact with the implementation of section 6407 of the Affordable Care Act and section 504 of MACRA. We recognize that states may have budgetary implications as a result of the amended definitions of medical supplies, equipment and appliances. Specifically, this rule may expand coverage of medical supplies, equipment and appliances under the home health benefit. There will be items that had previously only been offered under certain sections of the Act that will now be covered under the home health benefit.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) received and is considering approval of one amendment request. The amendment request is for Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, Unit 1; and H. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant, Unit No. 2. The NRC proposes to determine that the amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration. In addition, the amendment request contains sensitive unclassified non- safeguards information (SUNSI).