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Home Health & Hospice Week

Compliance:

Follow These 8 Tips To Boost Your Financial Health With New Funding Programs

Published on Fri Apr 17, 2020

Don’t forget the crucial last step to keep your CARES Act relief money.

Whether you’re in an active COVID-19 hotspot treating infected patients or dealing with preventive fallout ranging from school closures to patients refusing visits to skyrocketing supplies and equipment costs, the federal government’s financial relief programs can help you.

Follow this advice from the experts to make the most of the financial opportunities:

1. Educate yourself. There are important differences in the feds’ three big coronavirus relief programs, starting with whether you have to pay back the funds (see story, p. 102). Make sure you understand the details of each program so you can decide which one is right for your agency.

2. Dive into the details. The terms and conditions for the CARES Act funding relief program may make it a no-go for your agency (see story, p. 103).“Pay close attention to them,” urges Judi Lund Person with the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization. Weigh the documen­tation and reporting requirements carefully to decide whether it’s the right funding source for you.

The same goes for the CARES Act loans from the Small Business Association, which requires detailed payroll information, and the accelerated payment expansion, which requires repayments starting after 120 days.

3. Complete the final step. For CARES Act relief fund payments, most providers have their funds in their bank account now. But to keep those funds, you’ll need to sign an attestation statement confirming you agree to the program’s terms and conditions. At press time, the portal to sign the statement wasn’t yet operational, but it should be so any day. If providers don’t sign the attestation form within 30 days of receiving the relief funds, they must repay the money, notes consulting firm The Health Group in Morgantown, West Virginia.

4. Create a compliance plan. If you accept CARES Act relief funds, one of your most important steps is to create a compliance plan to make sure you comply with the terms and conditions, advised Ken Albert, CEO of Androscoggin Home Health & Hospice based in Lewiston, Maine. Make sure “those dollars are being monitored and expended in a way that can be reported adequately,” Albert urged in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ April 14 COVID-19 national call for home health and hospice providers.

5. Prepare for audits. Don’t expect CMS or the HHS Office of Inspector General to take your word for your COVID-19 spending. Audits from those quarters are a virtual certainty, judges Tom Boyd with Simione Healthcare Consultants in Rohnert Park, California.

6. Try different lenders. Companies trying to access the CARES Act SBA loans report delays in processing. You might want to try different lenders in case one of them proves to be processing applications more efficiently than the others.

7. Stretch a dollar. If you’re relying on accelerated payments to get you through the COVID-19 patch, “be judicious,” advises finance expert Dave Macke with VonLehman & Co. in Fort Wright, Kentucky. Unlike with the other programs, there are no requirements on how you use accelerated payment cash. But remember, after 120 days, Medicare will start recouping the funds from your payments, resulting in zero-payment claims until the amount is repaid in full.

8. Stay tuned. Experts hope to see details about reporting requirements and more sooner rather than later, they say. Keep an eye out for those specifics.

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