Home Health & Hospice Week

Provider Relief Fund cert details reassure.

Many questions continue to swirl about the CARES Act COVID-19 funding options, but some details are finally coming clear.

For example: For the Provider Relief Fund, “there is still confusion regarding the attestation,” says consulting firm The Health Group in Morgan-town, West Virginia. “All providers who were allocated finds must use the portal and sign the attestation agreeing to the terms and conditions within 45 days of payment of the funds,” The Health Group stresses in its electronic newsletter.

And “all providers who received an initial distribution, regardless of whether they received a second distribution, must submit their 2018 tax return and other limited information via the General Distribution Portal,” the consulting firm directs. Many home health and hospice agencies didn’t receive any funds from the second distribution (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIX, No. 17).

Meanwhile: The Small Business Adminis­tration eased smaller providers’ fears about the loan certification statement for CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program loans.

The problem: When submitting a PPP application, all borrowers must certify “in good faith” that “current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations of the Applicant,” the SBA notes in a PPP question-and-answer set. Providers were worried over whether they would qualify for loan forgiveness upon review of the certification documentation.

The solution: “Any borrower that ... received PPP loans with an original principal amount of less than $2 million will be deemed to have made the required certification concerning the necessity of the loan request in good faith,” the SBA says in its Q&As updated May 13 via a link at www.sba.gov/document/support--faq-lenders-borrowers.

That’s “very good news,” says Brian Malt-house with VonLehman & Co. in online analysis, noting the new Q&A “should alleviate the fears that many PPP loan recipients have been having.”

But concerns linger for providers whose loans don’t qualify for that safe harbor, because they are greater than $2 million. “This approach will enable SBA to conserve its finite audit resources and focus its reviews on larger loans, where the compliance effort may yield higher returns,” the new Q&A notes.

But at least borrowers that don’t pass SBA’s test won’t be subject to any further penalties than having to repay the loan. “If the borrower repays the loan after receiving notification from SBA, SBA will not pursue administrative enforcement or referrals to other agencies based on its determination with respect to the certification concerning necessity of the loan request,” the new Q&A details.

The prior vagueness “had instilled fear of consequences including jail time, if you ... failed the SBA’s pretty nebulous certification,” Malthouse notes. The new Q&A “should give millions of Americans peace of mind,” he says.

But $2-million-and-up borrowers shouldn’t count on the funding as a grant quite yet. “There is still considerable uncertainty on what factors the SBA will consider in making its determination on whether loans greater than $2 million meet the adequate basis requirement,” note Anne Coughlin and Jesse Palmer with BKD in online analysis.