Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

As more reporting period deadlines for CARES Act Provider Relief Funds (PRF) approach, providers face further risk of takebacks.

So indicates a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO recently looked at the $135 billion in payments from the HHS Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to healthcare providers under the PRF program.

HRSA has audited a sample of PRF reports as well as reviewing “irregular payments” and recouping funds from noncompliant (i.e., non-reporting) providers, the GAO notes. As of May 2023, HRSA had recouped nearly half of the $2.62 billion in PRF payments identified for recovery, with the other half scheduled by August 2023.

Reminder: Last April, HRSA published a PRF post-payment update, expounding on past funding rollouts, further explaining the reporting process, and adding two more Reporting Periods (RPs). Then in June, President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 into law, ending further PRF disbursements — including dashing providers’ hopes on reconsideration requests of PRF funds (see Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement, Vol. 49, No. 13).

Don’t forget: The original timeline for RP 5 has passed, but the application to request to report late is open through Oct. 27 with a final late reporting deadline of Dec. 1. Reporting Period 6, covering funds distributed from July 1 to Dec. 1, 2022, opens Jan. 1, 2024 and runs through March 31, 2024. After that will follow RPs 7, 8, and 9. You can review updated due dates and guidance on reporting at www.hrsa.gov/provider-relief/reporting-auditing.

The GAO report is online at www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-106083.pdf.