Home Health & Hospice Week

Will Feb. 15 reporting deadline get pushed?

Keep an eye out for Provider Relief Fund clarifications. The reporting system is supposed to open for providers on Jan. 15, ahead of the Feb. 15 reporting deadline.

Those dates are still up on the Health and Human Services website, but at press time there was no other sign of the system being ready to go on the 15th. “Nobody knows what the PRF reporting site will look like,” stresses Dave Macke with VonLehman & Co. in Fort Wright, Kentucky. “There’s been no education on how to use it.”

And many gray areas that arose when the latest COVID-19 relief package was enacted have not been cleared up by additional guidance, Macke points out. Vital questions remain about how to calculate losses and how to report the data, among other topics.

The transition between presidential administrations occurring at the same time as PRF reporting’s onset probably isn’t helping, as both pertinent leaders and rank-and-file staff exit or change positions, Macke acknowledges.

“I’d be surprised if the Feb. 15 deadline still stands,” Macke tells AAPC. But until there is official word from HHS either way, providers must proceed with that as their due date for reporting, he advises.