Situation Report | September 28, 2020
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued the data and post-payment reporting requirements for Provider Relief Fund (PRF) recipients who received one or more payments exceeding $10,000.
Question and Answer sessions and resources are also expected in advance of the reporting deadline.
Recipients will report their use of PRF payments by submitting the following information in two steps.
As a first step, providers will submit unreimbursed health care-related expenses (i.e., those expenses attributable to coronavirus that another source has not reimbursed and is not obligated to reimburse). These may include General and Administrative (G&A) or health care-related operating expenses.
As a second step, providers will apply unexpended PRF payment amounts to their “lost revenues,” now defined as a negative change in year-over-year net patient care operating income (i.e., patient care revenue less patient-care-related expenses), “net of the health care-related expenses attributable to coronavirus calculated under step 1.”
Recipients that reported negative net operating income from patient care in 2019 may apply PRF amounts to lost revenues up to a net zero gain/loss in 2020.
If recipients do not expend PRF funds in full by the end of calendar year 2020, they will have six additional months to use remaining amounts toward unreimbursed coronavirus expenses, or to apply those funds toward lost revenues in an amount not to exceed the 2019 net gain. (For example, the reporting period January to June 2021 will be compared to the same period in 2019.)
HHS says the reporting portal won’t be available until early 2021 – a delay from the October 1, 2020 timeframe announced in a prior notice.
However, CMS doesn’t appear to have delayed the reporting deadline, so reports for 2020 expenditures and lost revenue related to COVID-19 are still due 45 days from December 31, 2020.