Posted on Wednesday, September 23, 2020
CMS confirmed this week that the loan repayment process will continue to be delayed as Congress is still working on the terms of the recoupment process.
Originally, CMS increased their advance and accelerated payment programs for Medicare providers to help with cash flow during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once funds became available through the CARES Act, they suspended the program for Medicare Part B providers while deciding what to do about Part A providers. The loan repayments should have started in August.
“This means that providers will not have the financial impact in the immediate time frame we are in, as previously planned, which may be great for some providers,” Beth Prince, Vice President of Revenue Management Services at Corridor told HHCN in an email. “However, the delay creates another period of anticipating and planning for repayment for our providers and agencies, except that there is not as much concrete information to plan future steps on, in my opinion.”
“I think most providers always anticipated repayment in some fashion in the future,” Prince said. “The future impact of the repayment for our industry can be significant or minor, depending on the strength of the financial strategy the agency embraced at the high point of the COVID-19 impact.”
For now, Prince believes providers should continue to stay informed, monitor payer reimbursement behavior and implement a full reconciliation process before repayment officially begins.
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