The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) announced it will begin distribution of Phase 3 Provider Relief Fund (PRF) payments on Dec. 16 and continue through January. The Phase 3 distribution considers actual revenue losses and expenses attributable to COVID-19 and follows two earlier General Distributions.
HHS did not publish a formula for how it calculated Phase 3 payments, indicating that funding will meet “up to 88 percent of [a provider’s] reported losses” from COVID-19 in the first half of the year. This may exceed the previous baseline payment target of 2% of the annual revenue from patient care. Additional information about Phase 3 includes:
- Phase 3 funds are being distributed for applications submitted between Oct. 5 and Nov. 6.
- HHS increased the amount of available Phase 3 funding from $20 billion to $24.5 billion.
- Payments are being distributed to over 70,000 providers. An estimated 35,000 applicants will not receive an additional payment either because they experienced no change in revenue or net expense or because they already received funds that equal or exceed reimbursement of 88% of reported losses.
