What is Provider Relief Funding?

On October 1st, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced $20 billion in new funding for providers on the coronavirus pandemic’s frontlines through the Phase 3 General Distribution allocation.

Phase one and two already went through earlier in 2020, but as of October 5th, 2020, providers, including long term care, skilled nursing, assisted living, etc., can apply for funding.

Facilities who already received Provider Relief Fund payments can apply for additional funding, as well as previously ineligible providers, such as an expanded group of behavioral health providers. HHS stated the new Phase 3 General Distribution is “designed to balance an equitable payment of 2 percent of annual revenue from patient care for all applicants plus an add-on payment to account for revenue losses and expenses attributable to COVID-19.”

The Provider Relief Fund supports healthcare providers in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. With the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act (PPPCHE), the federal government has allocated $175 billion in payments to be distributed through the Provider Relief Fund (PRF).

Are these payments a loan or is this a grant?

These distributions do NOT need to be repaid to the US government, assuming recipients comply with the terms and conditions corresponding to their provided service.

Who Is Eligible?

Any provider of healthcare, services, and support in a medical setting, at home, or in the community that can prove healthcare-related expenses or lost revenue due to COVID-19.

All relief payments are being made to billing tax identification numbers (TINs). There may be instances where a billing TIN includes multiple facilities.

Providers include, but are not limited to:

• Assisted Living Facilities

• Nursing Homes

• Acute care hospitals

• Behavioral health providers

To be eligible for Provider Relief Funding you must:

• Be a state-licensed / certified assisted living facility as of March 31, 2020

• Billed Medicaid / CHIP programs or Medicaid managed care plans for health-related services between Jan.1, 2018-Mar.31, 2020.

• Bill Medicare A for services

How much is HHS allocating to each targeted distribution?

The $20 billion new funding follows $30 billion HHS distributed earlier this year, reaching up to $50 billion in financial support to provide relief to eligible providers throughout the American healthcare system.

HHS is methodically allocating targeted distribution funding to providers in areas especially affected by the COVID-19 spread, rural providers, and providers requesting reimbursement for the treatment of uninsured patients. The amounts vary depending on the state and the provided service.

HHS is allocating the greater distribution to hospitals with a high amount of confirmed COVID-19 positive inpatient admissions.

Read the breakdown of the first and second rounds of High-Impact Distribution by state.

HHS distributes $10 billion to rural hospitals, including Rural Acute Care General Hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), Rural Health Clinics (RHCs), and Community Health Centers located in rural areas.

Additionally, $1 billion is destined for specialty Rural hospitals, Urban Hospitals with certain rural Medicare designations, and hospitals in small metropolitan areas.

More funding is also being allocated to SNFs and Nursing Homes nationwide. The first distribution was $4.9 billion to Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs), and the second distribution of almost $2.5 billion was to Skilled Nursing Homes/ Facilities across the nation.

A separate $2 billion incentive payment structure provides more funding to Nursing Homes and Skilled Nursing Facilities based on certain performance measures.

HHS distributes $14.4 billion in PRF to Safety Net Hospitals that disproportionately provide care to the most vulnerable and operate on fragile margins.

Originally, HHS allocated $10 billion and then an additional $3 billion distribution, so certain Acute Care Hospitals meeting the revised profitability threshold would qualify.

Another $1.4 billion is going to nearly 80 free-standing Children’s Hospitals suffering from the pandemic’s financial difficulties.

Get Your Provider Relief Fund Application in on Time!

• Applicants who submit by Friday, November 6, 2020, at 11:59 p.m. ET will be considered for funding.

• All applicants must submit their TIN and financial information to the Provider Relief Fund Application and Attestation Portal. Applicants who submit by Friday, November 6, 2020, at 11:59 p.m. ET will be considered for funding.

• This is the 3rd round, and maybe the last!

Here’s the link again: https://cares.linkhealth.com/#/

How to sign up for the PRF:

Once you get signed up at the link above, just walk through the basic steps below. The system does a good job of taking you through these steps, but be sure to have someone knowledgeable about long-term care, assisted living, or skilled nursing finances involved or in charge of the application!

1. Get signed up on the website: https://cares.linkhealth.com/#/
2. Determine eligibility
3. Validate Tax ID Number (TIN)
4. Apply for funding
5. Receive payment
6. Attest to payment – Provider can reject the payment if its within 90 days
7. Report on the use of funds: Post-Payment Notice of Reporting Requirements

COVID-19 Uninsured Program Portal

If you need reimbursement for providing COVID-19 testing to uninsured individuals, the HHS has your back! Go over to the Covid Uninsured Claims website and get paid for those tests!

This portal is for providers seeking reimbursement for COVID-19 testing and treatment of uninsured individuals on or after February 4, 2020.

As part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will provide claims reimbursement to health care providers generally at Medicare rates for testing uninsured individuals for COVID-19, for treating uninsured individuals with a COVID-19 primary diagnosis, and for COVID-19 vaccine administration to the uninsured.

Here’s That Link Again: https://coviduninsuredclaim.linkhealth.com/

Want to get your data together to apply for the money?

NetSolutions’ General Financials makes it simple to gather service revenue for any time period needed for the Provider Relief purpose or any other.

Give a call if you want some help figuring out your long term care financials!

Transcript:

Jason Long
Hello, everyone, my name is Jason Long. I’m the General Manager for NetSolutions at Cantata Health. I’m here today with Kevin McCormack. And we’re going to be talking today about how some facilities have gotten $100,000 in up from the HHS and how you can get that money as well. So, Kevin, it’s good to see you again. Good to see you. Good afternoon.

Kevin McCormack
Today we’re going to talk about the provider relief funding for COVID-19. This is phase three, came out on October 1, it’s run by the Department of Health and Human Services, and they’ve got 20 billion more dollars. And if you haven’t put in for this as a nursing facility or skilled nursing, or an assisted living, you really need to get on the ball and have that done. And the reason is, this money is available, you can start applying for funds back on October 5, it’s the 22nd today. So there’s a, you know, a timeframe. And the last you can apply for that is November 6 2020, which is a Friday at 11:59 pm. So you’ve got a bit of time, but don’t want to be the last one you don’t want the funds to run out. Seems like 20 billion, that’s a lot. But there’s a lot of money going out. And there’s a lot of different providers. So who did Who does? Who’s available? Who gets the money?

Jason Long
Well, before we go into that, I have a quick question, what can you use the money for?

Kevin McCormack
You can use the money for virtually anything having to do with running your facility. The Health and Human Services stated that the general distribution is designed to balance an equitable payment of 2% of annual revenue from patient care for all applicants plus an add on payment to account for revenue losses, and expenses attributable to COVID-19. That’s a lot of money. And you do have something you might work with your accounting firm with, or if you have someone sharp and in house to do that, but it’s a lot of money for every nursing facility, it’s, you don’t want to leave it on the table. Because you’ll be struggling next year. There’s been, a lot of COVID-19 expenses and you’ve got reduced occupancy rates. So it has been a tough time for the nursing facilities. And this is certainly good.

Jason Long
Sounds good. So you were talking before about who’s eligible, I take it as not just, it’s not just nursing, there are other people who are dipping in this in this fund as well.

Kevin McCormack
There is it’s been expanded to include a group of behavioral health providers, it’s also for acute care, hospitals, dental services, local hospital near me got 120 $8 million. It’s a radical amount of money. But that’s it. And one of the things that do happen when you do get this money, it is public people can go if they have any, no one’s going to know to do this, but you can go to CMS. And in some little corner over there, there’s you can download an Excel spreadsheet to see everybody in the country that has gotten this, but it’s, uh, you know, all the eyeglass providers, you know, optometrists, you know, all different types of offices, of course, positions, and so everybody’s in it, but they do want to make sure that it’s nursing homes and assisted livings get their, their money.

Jason Long
Gotcha. And this, is this a loan? Or is this a grant?

Kevin McCormack
I guess you’d say a grant, it does not have to be repaid. But that’s assuming the providers comply with the terms and conditions of taking the money. So once you apply for it, and you get it, you do have it’ll be 90 days that you can say, you know what, I don’t want this and you can send it back. When but if you don’t do any of that,

Jason Long
Who is going to take their hundred thousand dollars and send it back?

Kevin McCormack
I’m not sure who would but it is there. There’s always you know, there’s a clause to get out of it. Maybe someone didn’t figure out the amounts and they don’t want to take it and get penalized. That would, that would be the only thing I could think of.

Jason Long
Gotcha. And so who’s eligible for it?

Kevin McCormack
And when you determine eligibility? I’m just going to focus on assisted living and skilled nursing, since that’s what we’re we’re more focused on to, so any states licensed or certified, assisted living facilities as of March 31 2020, is eligible to get this money. Now, it is important to note, in regard to when you’re talking about the assisted living, that if you’re going to get these funds, it’s to pay costs associated with CDC compliance. So ALFs, they generally have a large portion of their revenue, which is attributable to the residential portion of their business, ie like the rent. So independent living. So if it’s a CCRC, that part doesn’t count. But it’s the part that where you’re giving nursing services, you’re giving out the meds, you have CNAs, you’ve got a Memory Care Unit, that’s an assisted living, that is you can break out that patient revenue and get that 2% plus the extra for the COVID-19 expense.

Jason Long
So if you’re pulling out the patient revenue, I believe that Net Solutions will do that for you. Right?

Kevin McCormack
It does that one of the nice things, features that we have in NetSolutions, GL, I can print out an income statement. And I can just ask for revenues. And I could break out the revenues any way I want to. So I can say from this general ledger number to that General Ledger number and pull it out. So you can get this information very quickly. Which is really nice. And so if you’re using the NetSolutions, it’s a great tool. If you’re not and you’re having a lot of trouble, certainly give us a call, we could certainly help you out with that. Because this may come up next year as well.

Jason Long
You said a little bit about the timing that what can you remind me what’s the what is the deadline for this round?

Kevin McCormack
The deadline is November 6, Friday at 11:59 pm.

Jason Long
Okay, and so next Friday,

Kevin McCormack
What what you need to do is go to the Health and Human Services Provider Relief Fund application and attestation portal, that’s always a tough query. So you have to file it to be considered for the funding. And I’m sure we can put that out in writing on the website there. So that will be available to you if you don’t if you’re not able to find it. So once you pull that up in that portal, yet, the first thing that you know, there are six steps, you determine eligibility. So if you’re a nursing facility or an assisted living, you can go ahead and put that in there, you have to validate your tax ID number, then you go and apply for the funds. And once you’re in the portal, and I haven’t been in to see all the detail, because I don’t have a valid tax ID number to do that. But the applying for the funding is, you know, essentially, you know all your service revenue, you put it in, and they sort of guide you through it. Again, make sure that the person doing it does know what they’re doing. You don’t ever want to have to pay that back. You want to be careful. But you do want to get everything that you possibly can so definitely have someone review it if you could, then you receive your payment and you also attest to the payment. Because like I said, you can reject the payment if it’s within 90 days for whatever reason you don’t want it but you know if it’s 100,000 or more, you’re gonna want that money.

Jason Long
Yeah. Or if it’s any money, you’re probably gonna want that money.

Kevin McCormack
And that’s true. There’s one thing about that money, it is considered income by the IRS, which of course is taxable, taxable which makes sense.

Kevin McCormack
No one ever gets free money without some sort of hook on it. So there is some tax but the way the industry is run, I’m sure that the amount of tax is not going to be all that much.

Jason Long
Yeah, okay, perfect. That’s so anybody who’s watching this jump on it, you’ve got you got just a couple of weeks. Let’s see it’s the 22nd while we’re right now is the 22nd of October as we’re recording this, you’ve got until the six So get out there and grab the link in the website and make sure you fill it out, get free money because we know that you need it. There

Kevin McCormack
There is one other thing I want to mention. There is another portal, which is for providers to seek reimbursement for COVID-19 testing and treatment of uninsured individuals on or after February 4 of this year. Okay. It was part of the families first coronavirus response Act and the paycheck Protection Program and the health care Enhancement Act and the Cronus, a coronavirus aid relief, and economic security the cares act. HHS will provide claims reimbursement for health care providers generally at the medicare rates for testing uninsured individuals. So if you have to test Your people, you will get reimbursed for that. And which is key, and you’ll get reimbursed at a high level of reimbursement with Medicare. So you’ll get at medicare rates. So another link that I’ll put on there is the COVID uninsured claim. So a person comes in, they don’t have health insurance, you don’t have to eat that. You can go in here and put it in, you’ll get reimbursed at a nice rate too. So at the bottom, we’ll certainly put that in on below this video. So you have that information as well.

Jason Long
Gotcha. So I think I see the link right here, you got COVID, uninsured claim dot link? health.com. Is that correct?

Kevin McCormack
That is correct.

Jason Long
All right. Perfect. And I just wanted, I wanted to clarify one thing. On the eligibility, you said it was assisted living facilities, nursing knows that nursing homes, so skilled nursing, acute care, hospitals, behavioral health providers, and then just kind of everybody else is that. Is that close? Is that right? Is anything else? Anything? Any other specific ones that you wanted to bring up?

Kevin McCormack
No, I think behavioral health was added in there, as well as dental. I’ve got a tough time off, kind of won’t even say it, the AI people, you’ve got all your positions, you’ve got, you know, different Physicians Group. So everybody that’s been affected by the COVID-19 during the course of the year where they weren’t able to open their office. So a lot of people, virtually everyone was affected in healthcare, but

Jason Long
Especially long term care and skilled nursing and such.

Kevin McCormack
Actually, they’ve been affected the most.

Jason Long
Yeah, I am sure they were affected the most aren’t perfect. This is super helpful. As always want to get this out to as many people as possible to help everybody, collect some money, make sure that everybody is thriving during a difficult time. And, as always, thank you so much, Kevin, you’re so so very helpful. And I appreciate this and everyone out there really appreciates it.

Kevin McCormack
Alright, have a great day. You too.

Jason Long
I’ll talk to you soon. All right. Bye!