PRB Reporting and Auditing FAQ

A Reporting Entity must report on their Provider Relief Fund and/or ARP Rural payment(s), only when they have retained, as of the end of the Reporting Time Period, over $10,000 in aggregated Provider Relief Fund and American Rescue Plan (ARP) Rural payments received during a Payment Received Period. Entities that do not return a portion of the funds that places them below the $10,000 threshold, or report on the use of funds by the end of the applicable Reporting Time Period, must return all funds received during the Payment Received Period.

(Updated 4/6/2022)

For any subsidiary that was the original recipient of a Targeted Distribution payment reporting on a payment spent by a parent entity, the expense worksheet(s) in the subsidiary report must include any expenses applied to the payment, whether those were the expenses of the subsidiary or the entity to which the payments were transferred. For any subsidiary Reporting Entity reporting on how a payment was used to reimburse lost revenues, the subsidiary Reporting Entity can use the alternative method for calculating lost revenues and demonstrate in their method how the lost revenues of the parent or other subsidiary entity to which the payment was transferred was considered in the lost revenues calculation.

Using the alternative reasonable methodology will allow Reporting Entities to reduce the parent entity’s report by the amount of lost revenues accounted for by the Targeted Distribution payment originally received by the subsidiary. The subsidiary Reporting Entity that originally received the Targeted Distribution should report the exact amount of lost revenues as the Targeted Distribution payment and the same dollar amount by which the parent entity’s lost revenues were reduced. The deductions and reconciliations must be accounted for in each methodology calculation for the parent and subsidiary that originally received the Targeted Distribution payment. Both reports together should be sufficient for audit purposes.

(Added 1/27/2022)

HRSA does not prescribe which method Reporting Entities should use to calculate lost revenues. However, Option iii, “alternate reasonable methodology,” provides the greatest flexibility in unique circumstances.

(Added 1/27/2022)

There may be a delay between the time a payment is returned by a PRF recipient and the time the payment is reconciled by HRSA. If a Reporting Entity does not see a returned payment reflected in the Payments to Recipients page of the PRF Reporting Portal, the Reporting Entity should contact the Provider Support Line at 866-569-3522 (for TTY, dial 711) to provide information about the return (e.g., original payment date, amount returned, date of return, method of return) to assist HRSA in the reconciliation of the returned payment amount.

(Added 1/27/2022)

HRSA will not repay Reporting Entities the difference in unused funds that were owed and the amount that was returned.

(Added 1/27/2022)

No. Tax credits were not considered a revenue source for purpose of reporting within the Provider Relief Fund report.

(Added 12/9/2021)

Provider Relief Fund and/or ARP Rural recipients were required to report in each Payment Received Period in which they received one or more payments exceeding, in the aggregate, $10,000, as indicated in the table below. Reporting must be completed and submitted to HRSA by the last date of the relevant Reporting Time Period. Provider Relief Fund and/or ARP Rural recipients that do not report within the respective Reporting Time Period are out of compliance with payment Terms and Conditions and funds may be subject to repayment and/or recovery activities.

* Grace period until November 30, 2021.  

(Modified 5/5/2023)

HRSA will notify a Reporting Entity if their proposed methodology is not reasonable, including if it does not demonstrate with a reasonable certainty that claimed lost revenues were caused by coronavirus. If HRSA determines that a Reporting Entity’s proposed alternate methodology is not reasonable, the entity will be asked to resubmit its report within 30 days of notification using either Option i or Option ii to calculate lost revenues attributable to coronavirus.

(Added 7/1/2021)

Provider Relief Fund recipients shall exclude from the reporting of net patient revenue payments received or payments made to third parties relating to care not provided in 2019 and beyond.

(Updated 12/7/2023)

Recipients who received one or more General and Targeted Distributions and/or ARP Rural Distribution payments exceeding $10,000 in the aggregate during a Payment Received Period are required to report in each applicable Reporting Time Period.

(Modified 2/16/2023)

When the first reporting period begins, providers will be able to return unused funds through the Reporting Portal.

How to Return Unused PRF Funds.

(Updated 6/11/2021)

The parent organization as the original recipient of the payment must report on the use of funds in accordance with the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.

(Added 1/28/2021)

The subsidiary as the original recipient of the payment must report on the use of funds and any amount that was transfer to the parent organization in accordance with the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. For information on returning funds, visit the How to Return Unused PRF Funds page.

(Added 2/16/2024)

Reporting Entities that received General and Targeted Distribution payments were to submit a consolidated report through the Provider Relief Fund Reporting Portal.

(Added 1/28/2021)

Reporting Entities were required to submit actual patient care revenue for calendar years 2019 up to June 30, 2023, the end of the quarter in which the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ends, in order to inform program integrity and HRSA’s audit strategy.

(Updated 1/28/2021)

Primary TIN refers to the TIN of the parent company, and subsidiary TIN refers to the TIN of an entity that is a subsidiary of the parent company. Providers may have received payments directly to a parent and/or its subsidiary entities.

(Added 10/28/2020)

Some recipients may be individual providers for whom their TIN will be their SSN; similarly, for some entities the TIN will be the EIN.

(Added 10/28/2020)

If the provider includes entrance fee amortization as operating revenue on its financial statements, it should be considered as revenue associated with patient services. Entrance fee amortization must be handled in a consistent manner in both 2019 and 2020.

(Added 10/28/2020)

“Lost revenue attributable to coronavirus” was calculated based on operating revenue from patient care sources. Shareholder and partnership payments are not eligible to be included in the lost revenue calculation.

(Added 10/28/2020)

A portion of a Provider Relief Fund and/or ARP Rural recipient’s state provider taxes may be eligible expenses, but only to the extent the Provider Relief Fund recipient owes incrementally increased state provider taxes, where the incremental increase is attributable to coronavirus.

(Modified 10/27/2022)