HHS is working to distribute the billions of dollars in COVID-19 relief funding earmarked for providers in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act that was signed into law in late March.
Below is a timeline of the relief fund distribution, allocation announcements from HHS:
April 10: HHS begins distributing $30 billion to providers across the U.S. based on their Medicare fee-for-service revenue. The $30 billion is from round one of the general distribution fund. Nearly 320,000 billing providers receive funding.
April 24: HHS begins distributing a second tranche of general distribution funds. This $20 billion in funding is earmarked to be distributed based on hospitals' share of net patient revenue. About $9.1 billion was sent to 15,000 Medicare providers based on revenues from CMS cost report data. HHS also starts sending $10.9 billion to Medicare fee-for-service billing providers based on revenue submissions to the provider portal. HHS said that just $2.4 billion of the $10.9 billion had been distributed as of June 15.
May 6: HHS begins distributing $10 billion in funding to rural healthcare providers, including hospitals, clinics and centers. The funds go to almost 4,000 rural providers.
May 7: HHS says it will distribute $12 billion to 395 hospitals that treated 100 or more COVID-19 patients between Jan. 1 and April 10.
May 22: HHS says it will allocate $4.9 billion to at least 13,000 certified skilled nursing facilities to help offset losses attributed to COVID-19.
May 29: HHS begins to allocate $500 million to various tribal hospitals, clinics and centers across the U.S. The funds will go to about 300 Indian Health Service programs.
June 3: The deadline passes for providers to submit revenue information to the portal to be considered for the additional $20 billion general distribution funding.
June 8: HHS says it will distribute a second round of funding for providers who treated a high number of COVID-19 patients. To be considered, hospitals can update the number of COVID-19 admissions it had between Jan. 1 and June 10. The deadline was June 15.
June 9: HHS says it will distribute an additional $10 billion to safety-net hospitals. To qualify, hospitals must have average uncompensated care per bed of at least $25,000, profitability of 3 percent or less and a Medicare Disproportionate Payment percentage of 20.2 percent or greater. Each eligible hospital will receive $5 million to $50 million, HHS said.
June 9: HHS said it has earmarked $15 billion to eligible providers that participate in the Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Programs that have not received payment from the general distribution of safety-net funding.