Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) sent a letter urging Acting Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Liz Richter to provide Medicare Accelerated and Advance Payment program relief and alleviate the financial burdens on hospitals navigating COVID-19-related challenges.
The letter (attached) highlights the importance of the hospital payments throughout the pandemic and requests that CMS consider total loan forgiveness, adjustments to repayment interest rates, and extensions to repayment schedules.
GNYHA strongly supports Medicare accelerated payments relief and will continue to press for improvements to the program. We urge Congress to convert the Medicare payments into a grant/loan forgiveness program so that either no repayment or a partial repayment would occur. At a minimum, we ask that Congress extend the timeframe for the 25% recoupment offset, providing an option for providers to extend the repayment terms for up to 20 years, and reduce the interest rate to 2% (from the current 4% rate).
We are grateful to Senator Gillibrand for her letter and support of hospitals and health care providers.