HHS Requesting Additional Data from Hospitals to Help Determine Distribution of Some CARES Act Funds

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) yesterday announced in an email that it is planning an additional $10 billion distribution of funds to hospitals that have been particularly affected by the increased burden of caring for those with COVID-19. To inform how these funds are distributed, HHS is asking all hospitals to provide it with certain information. This includes, for each facility with a Medicare Tax Identification Number (TIN), its total number of COVID-19 positive inpatient admissions from Jan. 1, 2020 through June 10, 2020. Hospitals must submit these data in order to be eligible for these payments, although doing so is not a guarantee of eligibility for any amount. We encourage all hospitals to submit these data.

HHS has posted FAQs (beginning on page 26) that answer a number of questions about the funding, including how it differs from the initial distribution, whether hospitals can apply for funding if an application was submitted for the first round of funding, whether emergency department admissions count as a positive inpatient admission, and many others.

Submissions must be made by 9 p.m. ET on Monday, June 15. HHS is requiring this information be provided through an authentication portal established by its vendor TeleTracking. HHS notes that hospital systems with more than one facility under a common TIN must report the number of admissions occurring within each facility. It states that reporting this information can be accomplished by either entering the data for each facility manually, or by using the comma separated values (CSV) document upload available on the TeleTracking platform. Additional information about setting up a TeleTracking account and entering data are available on TeleTracking’s help website. If there are questions about the registration process, HHS says hospitals should contact TeleTracking Technical Support at 877-570-6903. Questions about the distribution can be directed to the provider support line at 866-569-3522.

Further Questions

If you have questions, please contact AHA at 800-424-4301.