NAB Perspective | Free Money & Foot Notes
During the height of the global pandemic many practices were offered the chance to receive funds from the Federal government, via the Provider Relief Fund, to help offset any revenue losses or expenditures incurred due to the COVD-19 pandemic. We, your National Advisory Board, hosted an information laden webinar covering the availability of these funds and caveats about “free money”. True to form, the Health Resources and Services Administration, HRSA, are now holding our feet to the proverbial fire about the granted funds.
When many of the Providers attested to receiving the funds, there was a footnote that said that we agreed to report on our use of the granted funds in a method that had not yet been determined by the federal agency. HRSA, which is a part of Health and Human Services, has developed a three-option platform that allows Providers to report in an accurate and somewhat easy to use fashion. Option one is a Comparison of Actual Lost Revenues using 2019 as your base period... Option two provides a Comparison of budgeted to actual lost revenues. Option three allows the Provider to develop their own methodology to report. The methodology must be “fair”, and I believe HRSA when they say that using this method significantly increases your chances of being audited either now or in the future by HRSA. As a reminder, all Practices that received funding should keep your reporting documents for at least a three-year period. For more information regarding reporting and auditing, please visit: https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/cares-act-provider-relief-fund/faqs/provider-relief-fund-general-info/index.html#auditing-reporting-requirements.
Of course, there are plenty of webinar styled learning opportunities to assist Providers and their accountants to accurately report the use of their federally granted funds using their nifty new portal. Providers have been segmented in several groups which all must report using one of the three options afford to us by HRSA on a schedule set by the behemoth federal agency. The HRSA website has a robust set of tools to assist Providers to report successfully. One such tool is the downloadable PRF Reporting worksheet. This tool will help you gather the financial information needed to report accurately.
After attending several of these learning opportunities, I can honestly say that the reporting options are all fairly straight forward. As leaders in the Healthcare Industry, we knew this day was coming and I know many of us are already prepared with our quarterly numbers, so reporting should be a non-issue. We are so very grateful for the assistance of the federal agencies when our industry needed assistance and we are more than happy to report that we were good stewards of the resources granted to us. As we continue our battle against COVID-19 and its variants, it is important to never lose sight of the fact that we are in this together. Healthcare Workers are this nation’s backbone and together with our partner agencies we will continue to ensure the health and welfare of all Americans.
Respectfully submitted,
Your NAB
Representing your National Advisory Board,