PRF General Distribution and ARP Rural Questions

To be eligible for a Phase 1 – General Distribution payment, providers must have billed Medicare fee-for-service (Parts A or B) in Calendar Year 2019. Additionally, under the Terms and Conditions associated with payment, these providers are eligible only if they provide or provided after January 31, 2020, diagnoses, testing, or care for individuals with possible or actual cases of COVID-19. HHS broadly views every patient as a possible case of COVID-19.

All providers retaining funds must sign an attestation and accept the Terms and Conditions associated with payment.

(Updated 6/12/2020)

The Terms and Conditions for payments received on or around April 24, 2020, as part of the additional $20 billion under Phase 1 of the General Distribution require that recipients submit their revenue information.  Based on HHS's records, due in some instances to system issues, the Department did not receive your required revenue information necessary for program integrity purposes and consideration for additional payments.  In order to be considered for an additional payment, recipients must submit this revenue information by September 13, 2020.  If a health care provider rejected the funds received on or around April 24 and does not want to keep any additional funds received as a result of submitting revenue, they may return a payment by going into the attestation portal within 90 days of receiving payment and indicating they are rejecting the funds.  Providers must return the payment within 15 calendar days of rejecting the payment.

(Added 9/3/2020)

No. You received an automated email sent by DocuSign to providers who initiate one or more entries that were not completed or submitted. A number of providers opened duplicate entries in the DocuSign web portal, resulting in one or more of the entries (referred to as "envelopes" by DocuSign) becoming "orphaned" and incomplete. The expiration status of one DocuSign entry does not affect any other submissions by that provider. If an application was completed and submitted, no further action is required on the healthcare provider's part.

(Updated 7/14/2020)

HHS is distributing an additional $20 billion of the General Distribution to providers to augment their initial allocation so that $50 billion is allocated proportional to providers' share of 2018 gross receipts or sales/program service revenue. Payments are determined based on the lesser of 2% of a provider's 2018 (or most recent complete tax year) gross receipts or the sum of incurred losses for March and April. If the initial General Distribution payment you received between April 10 and April 17 was determined to be at least 2% of your annual gross receipts or sales/program service revenue, you may not receive additional General Distribution payments. There may be additional distributions in the future for which providers are eligible.

(Updated 6/12/2020)

To be eligible for the General Distribution, a provider must have billed Medicare fee-for-service in CY2019.  Phase 1 – General Distribution payments were made to the billing organization according to its Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN).  Payments to providers and practices that are part of larger medical groups went to the group's central billing office.

Some providers who did bill Medicare fee-for-service in CY2019 were not eligible for payment because either the provider is terminated from participation in Medicare or precluded from receiving payment through Medicare Advantage or Part D; is currently excluded from participation in Medicare, Medicaid, and other Federal health care programs; or currently has Medicare billing privileges revoked as determined by either the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services or the HHS Office of Inspector General.

If the provider's TIN that was intended for payment identifies both a social security number of an individual Medicare provider and another Medicare provider's employer identification number, that TIN was excluded from the General Distribution.  Providers were also excluded from the General Distribution if there was incomplete banking information and/or personal contact information. HHS is working to determine eligibility for a General Distribution payment for those affected providers.

(Added 6/15/2020)