The emergency room at Queens Hospital Center. | Mary Altaffer/AP Photo
Health care providers in coronavirus hot spots will receive $10 billion in bailout funds as early as next week, and hospitals will soon receive money for treating uninsured patients, the Trump administration said Wednesday.
The new plans for spending down a hospital rescue fund Congress approved almost a month ago came amid cries from Republican and Democratic lawmakers for the Department of Health and Human Services to ship out the funds more quickly. Hospitals say they’re losing revenue at a rapid clip, as they cancel nonemergency surgeries and routine patient visits to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Hospitals in areas with a surge of Covid-19 cases can apply for their share of $10 billion, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer estimated will result in $4.4 billion for his hard-hit home state of New York. An additional $10 billion will be sent as early as next week to rural hospitals and health clinics, which argue they’re in desperate need of an infusion of cash and had been struggling financially before the crisis.
“Our goal in all of the decisions we’re making is to get this money out the door as quickly as possible, while targeting it to those suffering the most from the pandemic,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said on a call with reporters.
The administration declined to say, though, how much of the $100 billion hospital bailout fund will cover treatment for the uninsured — a sensitive subject for President Donald Trump after he refused to reopen Obamacare’s health insurance marketplaces late last month. His administration days later announced it would tap the hospital fund, though health officials spent the next few weeks hammering out the details.
Health care advocates said they’ve heard from uninsured patients worried about bills, and some hospitals said they’ve been holding off on billing until they got more guidance from the Trump administration on its coverage plan.
HHS on Wednesday said providers next week can start registering for the uninsured fund and can begin submitting claims in early May. One estimate from the Kaiser Family Foundation said that the cost of treating uninsured coronavirus patients could range roughly between $14 billion and $42 billion.
The uninsured funding will come out of a $30 billion pot that will also go toward nursing facilities, dentists, providers that only service Medicaid patients and a potential second batch for virus hot spots. HHS declined to further detail how those funds would be distributed.
HHS has already sent $30 billion to providers from the bailout fund based on how much they got paid from Medicare — a formula the agency acknowledged overlooked vulnerable providers but said was necessary for the sake of rapidly sending out funds. The department said it will quickly send out a second $20 billion batch based on providers’ overall patient revenue, and not just what they take in from the seniors’ health care program.
Additionally, HHS is allocating $400 million for the Indian Health Service, as the Native American community has been hit hard by the virus.
HHS was given wide latitude to distribute the bailout fund included in the $2.2 trillion Cares Act. Congress is on the brink of approving another $75 billion for hospitals, which said the first bailout wasn’t enough to keep them afloat, even as some states begin to lift restrictions on elective procedures. The latest bill, expected to pass Congress this week, again gives HHS discretion to divvy up the funding.
Trump sending hospital bailout funds for virus hot spots, uninsured patients
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