Approval of Medicare Accelerated Payments to Health Care Providers Begins

Samuel P. Burgess and Jeffrey B. Scheer, Bond, Schoeneck & King

Health Care

As noted in our prior memo from April 1, 2020, as part of the CARES Act, the Medicare Accelerated Payment Program (Program) was expanded. In an effort to provide financial support to health care providers during the current coronavirus pandemic, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has delivered nearly $34 billion in the first week of the Program’s implementation.

CMS has streamlined the process to review and approve applications for accelerated payments as the processing has been reduced from three to four weeks to four to six days. This Program is being utilized by numerous health care providers (hospitals, physicians, non-physician practitioners and durable medical equipment suppliers are eligible) as CMS has received over 25,000 requests, of which it has already approved more than 17,000 (compared to just 100 approvals over the last five years).

Please see the Fact Sheet from CMS for more information regarding the Program.

It should be noted that the money available through the Program is separate from the $100 billion that was appropriated for health care providers under the CARES Act. The Department of Health and Human Services expects to provide additional information in the next few weeks regarding the eligibility and availability of these funds.