HHS Opens PRF Portal for CHOWs, Second Chance Applicants; Another Webinar for Medicaid Providers. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced today that it opened the Provider Relief Fund (PRF) General Distribution Phase 2 portal for providers who did not receive distributions under Phase 1 or who did not receive their full distributions at 2% of all patient revenue. These providers include:

• Medicare providers who underwent a change in ownership in calendar year 2019 or 2020 and did not have Medicare fee-for-service revenue in 2019.
• Providers who "[m]issed the June 3 deadline to submit revenue information – including many Medicaid ... providers with low Medicare revenues that assumed they were ineligible for additional distribution targeted at Medicare providers or had planned to apply for a Medicaid and CHIP specific distribution [but ended up being ineligible]."
• Medicare providers who received less than 2% of their annual patient revenue.
• Medicare providers who returned their Phase 1 distribution and now wish to re-apply.
  

These providers have until August 28 to utilize the portal, as do Medicaid-only providers who have not yet applied for Phase 2 (ICFs/IID; DD, aging, or disability Medicaid waiver providers). The Medicaid applicants also will receive funding using the 2% of annual patient revenue standard.

The Health Resources and Services Administration scheduled another in its series of webinars to try to reach Medicaid providers who have not applied. This webinar is set for Thursday, August 13, at 3:00 p.m.

AHCA to Hold Thursday Call on New SNF Distribution. Also on Thursday at 3:00 p.m., AHCA will hold a call for SNF members with President and CEO Mark Parkinson. He will provide the latest information about the next tranche of PRF funding that is expected to begin flowing shortly. SNF members may register here. AHCA speaks with HHS on a near-daily basis about PRF distributions. Today, Mr. Parkinson shared a few details beyond what we reported previously:

• Initial payments under the new tranche could take a little longer than expected (10-14 days).
• The $2.5 million to be distributed to all SNFs will be allocated on bed size as well as anticipated receipt of a point-of-care (POC) testing machine in the near future. The payment are estimated to be about $865 per bed (POC recipients) and $1,635 per bed (non-POC recipients). It is not yet clear how these two groups will be defined.
  
• Payments under the $500 million value-based purchasing component based on the center having COVID-19 cases below the community average also will vary depending on whether the center is in a COVID-19 hotspot.
• HHS intended the $250 million fund for SNFs that create COVID-19 units to be prospective only, but is reconsidering after AHCA pushed back.
• The infamous "23-module infection control training" is not happening, but AHCA believes there will be some much smaller training requirement connected to a portion of the funding. This training definitely will not be either the training the Quality Improvement Organizations have been offering weekly for some time or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services infection preventionist training.
  

ODM Communication Technology Grants to SNFs. We continue to hear from SNF members that they have not received the communication technology grants for which they applied many weeks ago and that they are not getting responses to their messages to the Department of Medicaid (ODM). In our most recent conversation with ODM about these grants, ODM staff said they are processing them as quickly as possible and asked that all communication go to NFCMP@medicaid.ohio.gov for best response. We will speak with Medicaid about the status of the awards later this week.

Other Current Member Concerns. Two other issues of concern to members on which we are communicating with the respective state agencies:

• Bills to SNFs from Quest Diagnostics for the National Guard baseline testing program. These bills include staff members for whom the provider entered "uninsured" or "self-insured" or left the insurance information blank. In this issue, we still need clarification on the mechanics of the state covering self-insured providers under the ongoing repeat testing round.
• A memo from the Health Department (ODH) to nurses recruiting them to work at Oakwood Village in Springfield. This letter is concerning to members because they too are struggling to find staff and do not wan their employees to be wooed away. We will discuss this letter with ODH tomorrow.