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Public health emergency (United States)


In the United States, a public health emergency declaration releases resources meant to handle an actual or potential public health crisis. Recent examples include incidents of flooding, severe weather, and the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano described it as a "declaration of emergency preparedness."

The National Disaster Medical System Federal Partners Memorandum of Agreement defines a public health emergency as "an emergency need for health care [medical] services to respond to a disaster, significant outbreak of an infectious disease, bioterrorist attack or other significant or catastrophic event. For purposes of NDMS activation, a public health emergency may include but is not limited to, public health emergencies declared by the Secretary of HHS [Health and Human Services] under 42 U.S.C. 247d, or a declaration of a major disaster or emergency under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford Act), 42 U.S.C. 5121-5206)."

The declaration of public health emergency in the March 2009 flood of the Red River in North Dakota was made under section 319 of the Public Health Service Act. Under section 1135 of the Social Security Act, this declaration permits the state government to request waivers of certain Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP requirements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Regional Office. Examples include allowing Medicare health plan beneficiaries to go out of network, allowing critical access hospitals to take more than the statutorily mandated limit of 25 patients, and not counting the expected longer lengths of stay for evacuated patients against the 96-hour average.


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