Private Room Waiver Ending

Posted on July 7, 2021 by Jeff Bostic

With the conclusion of the state peacetime emergency agreed to by lawmakers last week, one of the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) policies that ends with it is a waiver of specific requirements around single rooms. Because of the frequency of quarantining of residents during the pandemic, DHS released a memo in November of 2020 that waived two policies around single rooms for quarantine situations:

• The physician signature requirement for medically necessary single rooms in care centers that are eligible for the 11.5% Medical Assistance rate differential
• The 30-day notice to private pay residents of a rate increase related to being moved to a private room

With the waiver's expiration, a physician's order will be required for medically necessary single rooms, even in cases where the single room is needed due to a quarantine for COVID-19. As a result of high vaccination rates and low case rates, this should be an uncommon occurrence in the future.