HHS updates Provider Relief Fund FAQs
The Department of Health and Human Services yesterday updated its Provider Relief Fund FAQs related to “Terms and Conditions,” “Ownership Structures and Financial Relationships,” and “Use of Funds.”
The updates relate to recoupment of funds; the allowable timeframe to calculate COVID-19 expenses or lost revenue; oversight and enforcement mechanisms; conditions for accepting additional PRF payments; how a parent organization may use its funds across its providers; how cost-based reimbursement relates to PRF payments; how organizations calculate the “expenses attributable to coronavirus not reimbursed by other sources”; and the interaction between the PRF and other sources of pandemic relief funding, such as money available through the Paycheck Protection Program and Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In addition, HHS deleted a Feb. 24 FAQ regarding the use of Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital funds, which was the source of some confusion. The FAQ had stated that Medicaid DSH payments for uncompensated costs of delivering inpatient or outpatient hospital services are costs covered by another source and therefore ineligible to be covered by PRF payments.