03/04/2022
First HB 169 relief payments disbursed today
Today, the Ohio Departments of Aging, Developmental Disabilities, Medicaid, and Mental Health & Addiction Services held a stakeholder update regarding the distribution of ARPA HCBS provider relief payments as appropriated in HB 169. These relief payments will include disbursements to Ohio hospices, nursing homes, assisted living and home health & HCBS providers, including adult day and home-delivered meal providers. Most of the webinar recapped recent revisions to the disbursement plan, including requirements to pass a portion of relief funds through managed care plans to providers. Last Friday, LeadingAge Ohio held a special all-member webinar on these revisions, spelling out how each provider type can expect to receive funding.
New information from today’s webinar included:
- The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved Ohio’s plans to disburse funds for:
- DoDD-administered waivers: provider payments have been processed and should be received by next week;
- Residential care facilities/assisted living facilities: yesterday ODA held an instructive webinar for assisted living providers, outlining how to request a supplier ID and register in the OAKS system to receive payment. Note that the timeline for receiving a supplier ID is approximately two weeks, so providers should initiate this process immediately.
- PASSPORT and Ohio Home Care waivers: providers will receive payments in approximately seven days, with a separate remittance advice that includes the code HB169COVIDPMT.
- CMS has not yet approved disbursement methodologies for:
- MyCare Ohio;
- state plan home health;
- non-institutional durable medical equipment, prosthetics and orthotics;
- behavioral health (Types 84 & 95).
- Nursing facilities, ICFs, or hospices;
- PACE programs; or
- those providers requiring an 1135 state plan amendment or managed care directed payment “preprint”, which include:
- ODM verified that assisted living providers will receive a payment based on their licensed beds; no additional payments will be received for their participation in the assisted living waiver program.
- ODM confirmed that non-Medicaid nursing facilities will not receive payments.
- ODM confirmed that there is no deadline for providers to spend funds nor reporting requirements. However, payments may be subject to future audits, such as cost report audits.
- Nursing homes, ICFs and hospitals will be required to spend funds on “direct care” and are prohibited from spending funds on administrators, executives, contracted or agency staff. There are no such requirements or limitations for other provider types.
- ODM noted that the “preprint” which will require managed care plans to pass funds to providers are a “fairly common” practice; ODM will follow up with plans if they learn that funds aren’t being disbursed to providers on a timely basis.
- ODM noted that it is awaiting additional clarifications from CMS including an adjustment to the PACE capitation rate and the state’s options in spending the remainder of funds appropriated for hospices, which were calculated based on room & board payments.
LeadingAge Ohio encourages its waiver-participating home care members to carefully watch their bank accounts for payments over the coming week. LeadingAge Ohio has requested an accounting of the payments, to assist providers in verifying payments as they come in, though it is yet uncertain whether ODM will provide this. In the meantime, any questions may be directed to Susan Wallace at swallace@leadingageohio.org.