HHS Announces Additional Allocations of CARES Act Provider Relief Fund

UPDATED ON APRIL 24, 2020. The U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been distributing funds to providers as part of the CARES Act Provider Relief Fund. The first tranche of $30 billion was distributed to providers automatically between April 10–17 and was allocated based on 2019 Medicare fee-for-service reimbursements (see our client alert here). On April 22, 2020, HHS announced an additional $20 billion of general distributions to all providers, allocated based on 2018 net patient revenue. Our COVID-19 Legal Task Force is working on a detailed alert on this latest funding, but we wanted to draw your immediate attention to the fact that an additional $10 billion has been allocated specifically for hospitals that have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 response. As detailed in HHS’s announcement, hospitals can apply for a portion of this $10 billion allocation by providing four simple pieces of information via an authentication portal before 3:00 PM ET, Saturday, April 25, 2020. It is our understanding that the attached email was sent to certain hospitals yesterday/today outlining the required information and identifying TeleTracking as the HHS vendor handling the data submission.

1. Tax Identification Number
2. National Provider Identifier
3. Total number of Intensive Care Unit beds as of April 10, 2020
4. Total number of admissions with a positive diagnosis for COVID-19 from January 1, 2020 to April 10, 2020

Per HHS, the authentication and data-sharing process should take less than five minutes via the online portal. If you are not able to confirm receipt of HHS’s email with a link for electronic submission, you may contact TeleTracking Technical Support directly at 1-877-570-6903. HHS has indicated that the information is necessary for the government to determine what facilities will qualify for a targeted distribution. Supplying this information does not guarantee receipt of funds from this distribution. HHS will use the data it receives to distribute targeted funds to regions where the impact from COVID-19 is greatest. The distribution will take into consideration the challenges faced by facilities serving a significantly disproportionate number of low-income patients, as reflected by their Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Adjustment.

For any questions regarding the impact of The CARES Act Provider Relief Fund payments, please contact the Winston partners listed below or your Winston relationship attorney. View all of our COVID-19 perspectives here. Contact a member of our COVID-19 Legal Task Force here.