CMS Administrator Seema Verma announced an additional $30 billion dollars in grant funding for healthcare providers under the CARES Act in the Covid-19 Task Force press briefing on April 7, 2020.
According to Administrator Verma, President Trump has asked CMS to do more to support healthcare providers under the CARES Act $100 billion dollar funding provision. In today’s announcement, CMS has committed to releasing an additional $30 billion in grants. Total funds will be based on a provider’s historic Medicare revenue and will be issued to providers through direct deposit for those who are already established with Medicare.
Administrator Verma did acknowledge that there are many providers who will not benefit from CMS initiatives and advises that those organizations who are not Medicare funded will be addressed in future programs releases. There will also be a “simple” registration process for non-Medicare providers. Details to follow this announcement release.
As previously reported by Secretary of HHS, Alex Azar, a portion of the $100 billion fund in the CARES Act will be used to reimburse healthcare provider for Covid-related care provided to the uninsured and Medicaid population. The White House and CMS are expected to continue announcing how the full $100 billion in funding under the CARES Act will be allocated.
CMS also confirmed receipt of 25,000 requests for Accelerated /Advance Payments, an expanded initiative announced early last week. To date, CMS has processed 70% of those requests in just 5 days totaling $34 billion dollars at this time. CMS has committed to processing additional requests as received.
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Read the Press Release from CMS:
This post was first published April 8, 2020 and was updated July 29, 2020.
