Pennsylvania First Lady Frances Wolf is proud to recognize the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s announcement that allows schools to provide free meals to all students for the rest of the school year. These flexibilities, for which First Lady Wolf recently advocated alongside 17 other first partners and spouses, ensure that schools can continue to provide the meals despite the uncertainty and hardship caused by the pandemic.

“I am so glad that the USDA has taken this important step in guaranteeing that no child has to wonder where they might find their next meal,” said First Lady Wolf. “This forward-thinking provides much-needed certainty to families, school nutrition professionals, agricultural entities and community partners working to ensure that all children have access to nutritious meals as we continue to navigate a global health crisis and its subsequent economic effects. This is one piece of the puzzle for ensuring food security, and we look forward to continuing to work with USDA on the implementation of this and related efforts.”

These flexibilities, which have been extended through June 30, 2021, allow school feeding programs to avoid unnecessary barriers as they navigate health and safety concerns, staff limitations, technical restrictions, time constraints and more. From March through August of this year, Pennsylvania schools provided more than 25 million meals to children in need.

“With the USDA’s extension of the school feeding program waivers, students are promised access to nutritious food for the rest of the school year,” said Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding. “Throughout the COVID-19 mitigation response, these waivers have worked well for schools navigating many changes. Whether students are learning from home, at the school or a mix of both, these flexibilities will keep kids fed. Hungry kids can’t learn. Because of programs like this, no Pennsylvania student should go hungry.”

According to recent projections from Feeding America, more than 54 million people, including 18 million children, may experience food insecurity this year, marking a 45 percent increase in general food security rates and a 65 percent increase in child food insecurity rates compared to pre-COVID-19 statistics.

In Pennsylvania, 2.04 million Pennsylvanians, including nearly 630,000 children, face food insecurity. This marks an increase of 45.2 percent to the general food security rate and a 57.6 percent increase to the child food insecurity rate when compared to 2018 statistics.

In letters sent to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue and Congressional leadership on September 18, 2020, First Lady Wolf and the first spouses and partners of California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming encouraged both parties to work together to extend and fully fund the necessary school feeding program waivers throughout the remainder of the 2020-21 academic year.

Yesterday’s action by the USDA comes at the heels of the passage of continuing resolution HR 8337 by the United States House and Senate and its signing by President Trump on October 1, 2020. HR 8337, in addition to maintaining federal government funding through December 11, 2020, further extends the USDA’s necessary nutrition authority and funding through September 20, 2021, for child nutrition programs, Pandemic EBT, Summer EBT for Children, Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) and more. Further USDA action is needed to implement the extensions of these other programs. 

Providers are encouraged to apply for the latest round of Provider Relief Fund (PRF) support. Applications will be considered regardless of whether your organization was previously eligible for, applied for, received, accepted, or rejected prior PRF payments. For this newest phase, funding will be allocated to providers based on assessed financial losses and changes in operating expenses caused by COVID-19.  For more information about the Phase 3-General Distribution, please visit the Provider Relief Fund webpage.

Apply here through November 6

Register for the webcast on October 15 at 3 p.m. ET to learn more.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced amended terms for payments issued under the Accelerated and Advance Payment (AAP) Program as required by recent action by President Trump and Congress. This Medicare loan program allows CMS to make advance payments to providers and are typically used in emergency situations. Under the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2021 and Other Extensions Act repayment will now begin one year from the issuance date of each provider or supplier’s accelerated or advance payment. CMS issued $106 billion in payments to providers and suppliers in order to alleviate the financial burden healthcare providers faced while experiencing cash flow issues in the early stages of combating the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency (PHE).

“In the throes of an unprecedented pandemic, providers and suppliers on the frontlines needed a lifeline to help keep them afloat,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “CMS’ advanced payments were loans given to providers and suppliers to avoid having to close their doors and potentially causing a disruption in service for seniors. While we are seeing patients return to hospitals and doctors providing care we are not yet back to normal,” she added.

CMS expanded the AAP Program on March 28, 2020 and gave these loans to healthcare providers and suppliers in order to combat the financial burden of the pandemic. CMS successfully paid more than 22,000 Part A providers, totaling more than $98 billion in accelerated payments. This included payments to Part A providers for Part B items and services they furnished. In addition, more than 28,000 Part B suppliers, including  doctors, non-physician practitioners, and Durable Medical Equipment (DME) suppliers, received advance payments totaling more than $8.5 billion.

Providers were required to make payments starting in August of this year, but with this action, repayment will be delayed until one year after payment was issued. After that first year, Medicare will automatically recoup 25 percent of Medicare payments otherwise owed to the provider or supplier for eleven months. At the end of the eleven-month period, recoupment will increase to 50 percent for another six months. If the provider or supplier is unable to repay the total amount of the AAP during this time-period (a total of 29 months), CMS will issue letters requiring repayment of any outstanding balance, subject to an interest rate of four percent.

The letter also provides guidance on how to request an Extended Repayment Schedule (ERS) for providers and suppliers who are experiencing financial hardships. An ERS is a debt installment payment plan that allows a provider or supplier to pay debts over the course of three years, or, up to five years in the case of extreme hardship. Providers and suppliers are encouraged to contact their Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) for information on how to request an ERS. To allow even more flexibility in paying back the loans, the $175 billion issued in Provider Relief funds can be used towards repayment of these Medicare loans. CMS will be communicating with each provider and supplier in the coming weeks as to the repayment terms and amounts owed as applicable for any accelerated or advance payment issued.

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The Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act authorized the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), to provide $225 million to RHCs for COVID-19 testing and related expenses. Beginning May 20, 2020, HRSA issued funding as one-time payments to RHC organizations of $49,461.42.

The terms and conditions for this program specify that, “The Recipient shall submit reports as the Secretary determines are needed to ensure compliance with conditions that are imposed on this Payment, and such reports shall be in such form, with such content, as specified by the Secretary in future program instructions directed to all Recipients.”

To monitor and assess the program, HRSA has established a set of proposed measures that funded RHCs report back to HRSA at the Tax Identification Number (TIN) level. This brief set of proposed measures includes basic information on the RHC organization, the number of and location of testing sites (active and inactive), information on the use of funds, the total number tests conducted, and the number of COVID-19 positive tests.

HRSA proposes to use this information to evaluate the effectiveness of the program at an aggregate level. As proposed, funded organizations must report the number of tests conducted and the number of positive tests on a monthly basis for the duration of the reporting period retroactively to May 2020. No personally identifiable, patient-level information is being requested.

HRSA will be in contact with RHCs in the coming weeks with more information on the RHC COVID-19 Testing Reporting (RHC CTR) website, upcoming webinar, and other additional information. Please forward the email to the best contact for your RHCs COVID-19 Testing Program and cc: RHCCOVID-19Testing@hrsa.gov if you are the incorrect recipient. HRSA has funded the National Association of Rural Health Clinics to provide technical assistance to RHCs on the RHC COVID-19 Testing Program.

If you have additional questions you may email RHCcovidreporting@narhc.org.

HRSA Rural Health Clinic COVID-19 Testing Program Team
RHCCOVID-19Testing@hrsa.gov
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