Department of Health and Human Services March 21, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice informs interested parties of an opportunity to apply for participation in the Medicare Care Choices Model. The primary goal of the Medicare Care Choices Model is to test whether Medicare beneficiaries who meet Medicare hospice eligibility requirements would elect hospice if they could continue to seek curative services.

This proposed rule addresses various requirements applicable to health insurance issuers, Affordable Insurance Exchanges (``Exchanges''), Navigators, non-Navigator assistance personnel, and other entities under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (collectively referred to as the Affordable Care Act). Specifically, the rule proposes standards related to product discontinuation and renewal, quality reporting, non-discrimination standards, minimum certification standards and responsibilities of qualified health plan (QHP) issuers, the Small Business Health Options Program, and enforcement remedies in Federally-facilitated Exchanges. It also proposes: A modification of HHS's allocation of reinsurance contributions collected if those contributions do not meet our projections; certain changes to the ceiling on allowable administrative expenses in the risk corridors calculation; modifications to the way we calculate certain cost-sharing parameters so that we round those parameters down to the nearest $50 increment; certain approaches we are considering to index the required contribution used to determine eligibility for an exemption from the shared responsibility payment under section 5000A of the Internal Revenue Code; grounds for imposing civil money penalties on persons who provide false or fraudulent information to the Exchange and on persons who improperly use or disclose information; updated standards for the consumer assistance programs; standards related to the opt-out provisions for self-funded, non-Federal governmental plans and the individual market provisions under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996; standards for recognition of certain types of foreign group health coverage as minimum essential coverage; amendments to Exchange appeals standards and coverage enrollment and termination standards; and time-limited adjustments to the standards relating to the medical loss ratio program.