Concerned that some private safety-net hospitals have not received Provider Relief Fund Phase 3 distributions and that others have not received adequate grants, the National Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals has written to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to ask for changes in HHS’s approach to the CARES Act grants intended to help hospitals absorb the additional expenses they have incurred and the revenue they have lost as a result of the COVID-19 emergency.

Specifically, NASH urged HHS to:

• Review the eligibility criteria and methodology for determining Provider Relief Fund grants to ensure that they reach true safety-net hospitals, and in particular those that serve especially large numbers of Medicaid patients.
• Recalculate Phase 3 grants in a way that better reflects the true financial obstacles safety-net hospitals have faced throughout the COVID-19 emergency.
• Apply more appropriate criteria and a better methodology for calculating payments in future Provider Relief Fund distributions.

Learn more from NASH’s letter to HHS Secretary Becerra.