August 9, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

DoD is issuing a final rule to amend the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to add Australia as a new World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement (WTO GPA) country.

DoD is issuing a final rule amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to partially implement a section of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 that provides a preference for the acquisition of certain commercial services in contracts that exceed the simplified acquisition threshold. The statute provides for a two-tier approval process, depending on value of the acquisition, if no commercial items are suitable.

DoD is proposing to amend the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to implement a section of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 that provides limits on the scope of review by the Small Business Administration's procurement center representatives for certain solicitations awarded by or for DoD.

The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) intends to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the Boise River Basin Feasibility Study. Reclamation is requesting public and agency comment to identify significant issues or other alternatives to be addressed in the EIS.

This proposed rule proposes revisions to the Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) and the Medicare ambulatory surgical center (ASC) payment system for CY 2020 based on our continuing experience with these systems. In this proposed rule, we describe the proposed changes to the amounts and factors used to determine the payment rates for Medicare services paid under the OPPS and those paid under the ASC payment system. In addition, this proposed rule would update and refine the requirements for the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting (OQR) Program and the ASC Quality Reporting (ASCQR) Program. In addition, in this proposed rule, we are proposing to establish requirements for all hospitals in the United States for making hospital standard charges available to the public; establish a process and requirements for prior authorization for certain covered outpatient department services; revise the conditions for coverage of organ procurement organizations; and revise the regulations to allow grandfathered children's hospitals-within- hospitals to increase the number of beds without resulting in the loss of grandfathered status. We also solicit comments on potential revisions to the laboratory date of service policy under the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule. Finally, we solicit comments on an appropriate remedy in litigation involving our OPPS payment policy for 340B- acquired drugs, which would inform future rulemaking in the event of an adverse decision on appeal in that litigation.