The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) PPE Subsidy is now available to ALL dental practices to help fund the purchase of the necessary protective supplies needed to safely practice. Please apply for this HHS subsidy known as the Provider Relief Fund (PRF) at: https://cares.linkhealth.com/#/.
The deadline to apply for this subsidy has been pushed back until 8/3. We posted information about this subsidy at: https://www.schwartzaccountants.com/2020/07/7-24-deadline-to-apply-for-the-hhs-ppe-subsidy-equal-to-2-of-2019-collections/.
Easy to follow instructions can be found at: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/medicaid-provider-distribution-instructions.pdf. We can gladly help you out with this, and our fee to complete and submit the application will be only $500 per submission.
Please note that some dentists are concerned that accepting these funds will result in your practice being required to accept every PPO even if you never signed up to be in network with those PPOs. That is mostly untrue. According to an email send by the ADA to their members:
Many of you have already applied and the number one concern we’ve heard has been about accepting the Terms and Conditions on balance billing, also known as surprise billing. The ADA worked with HHS to set the record straight and they’ve now clarified that:
- Dental providers who are not caring for patients with presumptive or actual cases of COVID-19 are not subject to balance billing prohibitions. ‘Presumptive’ is defined as a case where a patient’s medical record documentation supports a diagnosis of COVID-19.
- HHS thinks few, if any, dentists are performing dental work on active COVID patients. So, there should be very few dental patients covered by this bar.
- Qualifying for payment from the PRF has to do with past treatment earlier this year when HHS broadly viewed every patient as a possible case of COVID-19. Balance billing prohibitions apply only to treating current active COVID-19 patients with a medical record that supports a diagnosis of COVID-19.
For 2 months or so, people throughout the U.S. were mostly quarantined in their homes which substantially reduced the number of visits they made for medical and dental services. For the Medicare and Medicaid systems, that means that very little money was spent during those few months.
The federal government is looking to find ways to get those unspent funds into the hands of healthcare practices to help them acquire PPE to keep their patients and staff safe. The government is not providing these funds to trick practice owners into unknowingly signing up for programs that they would not otherwise sign up for during normal times.