Just 24 hours after the President signed the CARES Act into law, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued guidance for accelerated payments to Medicare to Part A and Part B Providers.
(CMS guidance referenced above: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/accelerated-and-advanced-payments-fact-sheet.pdf)
The Accelerated Payments are intended to ease cash flow needs while Part A or Part B providers focus on treating the flood of COVID patients with few employees at work to code, bill and submit claims.
Any Part A or Part B provider is eligible to submit a request and receive payment, provided they:
(i) have billed Medicare within 180 days;
(ii) are not in bankruptcy;
(iii) are not under active medical review or program integrity investigation; and
(iv) do not have any outstanding delinquent Medicare overpayments.
Part A providers are to request a specific amount through the MAC website up to 100 percent of the Medicare payment amount for a 3-month period; CAH’s can request 125 percent. CMS stated that the MAC’s will make all payments within seven (7) days of receiving the request. Hospitals have a year to repay the balance.
Part B providers also make the request through the MAC website in amounts up to 100 percent of the 3-month Medicare payments and have 120 days before recoupment of outstanding amounts will begin. It is not entirely clear from the guidance how the repayment or true up will be handled, but CMS will begin processing repayments 120 days after the payment is issued.