Posted May 3, 2023
Hospices are concerned about the potential regulatory impact that could come with the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) on May 11. Among the regulatory hotspots is rising scrutiny of how providers used funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Provider Relief Funds (PRF).
Approximately $175 billion in PRF funds were earmarked in the CARES Act, enacted on March 27, 2020, designed to replace revenue that health care providers lost due to the pandemic. The federal government authorized almost $350 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses through the PPP program. Congress later added another $321 billion.
Hospices have an advantage on compliance assuming they instilled solid documentation practices and record keeping when it came to how they spent these funds, according to Judi Lund Person, vice president of regulatory and compliance at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).
“What we’ve heard from providers is that if they kept good records during the public health emergency about what they were using these funds for, then reporting and auditing doesn’t seem to be too laborious,” Lund Person told Hospice News. “It’s all connected to whether you did a good job when you were in the middle of it all and getting the money – that’s the bigger thing.”
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Founded in 1989, The Corridor Group Holdings, LLC (Corridor) is a leading provider of technology-enabled outsourced coding, revenue cycle and education solutions to the post-acute healthcare industry. Leveraging deep and broad post-acute expertise, Corridor delivers documentation quality improvement and reimbursement success to clients ranging from large health systems and national chains to smaller, independently operated agencies. For more information visit www.corridorgroup.com.