06/03/2020

Providers Must Act on Application for Provider Relief Fund by June 3; HHS’ Extends Attestation Deadline

Background: $50 billion from the Provider Relief Fund has been allocated by Health and Human Services (HHS) for general distribution to Medicare facilities and providers impacted by COVID-19. To be eligible for the general distribution, a provider must have billed Medicare in 2019. To expedite providers getting money as quickly as possible, $30 billion was distributed immediately, proportionate to providers' share of Medicare fee-for-service reimbursements in 2019. HHS subsequently announced that the agency would begin distribution of the remaining $20 billion of the Fund to providers to augment their allocation so that the whole $50 billion general distribution is allocated proportional to providers' share of 2018 net patient revenue.

A portion of providers were automatically sent payment based on the revenue data they submitted in CMS cost reports. Providers without adequate cost report data on file need to submit their revenue information through an application portal on the HHS website. (HHS will likely have cost reports from facilities, but physicians and other providers may need to submit information through the portal.)

IMPORTANT NOTE – HHS has twice extended the deadline for attestation of acceptance or rejection of provider relief funds, but these extensions do not affect the application deadline for the second tranche of the general distribution.

Providers will have until June 3, 2020 to access the application portal to submit their revenue/loss information, at which time the application portal will close.

In order to enter the application portal, providers must accept or reject the first distribution of funds. By June 3, 2020, if a provider has not yet decided whether to accept the funds they have already received, they may reject the first set of funds and submit their revenue/loss information to the application portal for consideration. The provider will be reallocated all General Distribution funds they are owed based on their submitted application and will then have 90 days to attest or reject.

Thank you in advance for sharing this information widely as action is required now.