On March 28, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it would immediately implement a new Accelerated and Advance Medicare Payment policy to assist family physicians and other Medicare Part A and Part B providers and suppliers. Again, family physicians who meet the qualifying criteria are eligible for these accelerated and advanced Medicare payments. This is the policy that the American Academy of Family Physicians asked CMS to implement earlier this week.
Medicare will start accepting and processing the accelerated/advance payment requests immediately. CMS anticipates that the payments will be issued within seven days of the provider’s request.
Accelerated and advance Medicare payments provide emergency funding and addresses cash flow issues based on historical payments when there is disruption in claims submission and/or claims processing. These expedited payments are typically offered in natural disasters to accelerate cash flow to the impacted health care providers and suppliers. In this situation, CMS is expanding the program for all Medicare providers throughout the country during the public health emergency related to COVID-19. The payments can be requested by hospitals, doctors, durable medical equipment suppliers, and other Medicare Part A and Part B providers and suppliers.
-
- Have billed Medicare for claims within 180 days immediately prior to the date of signature on the provider’s/ supplier’s request form,
- Not be in bankruptcy,
- Not be under active medical review or program integrity investigation, and
- Not have any outstanding delinquent Medicare overpayments.