Home Health & Hospice Week

Home care providers that haven’t accessed Provider Relief Funds yet still have a chance.

The Department of Health and Human Services has given “providers who previously missed the June 3, 2020 deadline to apply for additional funding equal to 2 percent of their total patient care revenue from the $20 billion portion of the $50 billion Phase 1 General Distribution” a chance to do so now. The deadline is Aug. 28.

Who’s affected: Providers with “low Medicare revenues,” including “many” Medicaid providers, fall in that category, HHS notes in a release. “In addition, certain providers who experienced a change in ownership, making them previously ineligible for Phase 1 funding, will also be given an opportunity to apply for financial relief,” the agency adds.

Also included: “Providers who previously received Phase 1 General Distribution payment(s), but rejected and returned the funds and are now interested in reapplying” can do so, HHS says.

The application and attestation portal is at https://cares.linkhealth.com/#/.

Meanwhile, for providers that have received PRF payments and are waiting for rules on how to document and report their use — the wait is a little longer.

Then: In a July 20 notice, HHS said it would release details and instructions about PRF reporting by Aug. 17. It also changed guidance to indicate that instead of quarterly reports, providers would need to submit just one, or at the most two, reports (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIX, No. 28).

Now: HHS has announced a delay to the instructions. The HHS Health Resources & Services Administration “is continuing to refine its data elements and will provide those additional details at a date later than August 17, 2020,” HHS says on the PRF webpage. “Providers will still be given the detailed PRF reporting instructions and a data collection template with the necessary data elements they will be asked to submit well in advance of the reporting system being made available — which is currently targeted for October 1, 2020.”

Do this: “Providers should continue to check this website for the latest updates,” HHS advises. The site is at www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/cares-act-provider-relief-fund/for-providers/index.html.