HHAC's Appeal For Higher Medicaid Rates Published In 'Colorado Politics'

Posted: April 6, 2020

The Home Care & Hospice Association of Colorado's appeal for higher Medicaid reimbursement was published at ColoradoPolitics.com, Colorado's leading news site dedicated to political news and analysis 

"Even before the coronavirus outbreak, home-based care providers faced big challenges," wrote Don Knox, HHAC's executive director. "Medicaid reimbursement rates have not kept pace with the cost of recruiting and retaining care providers, making it difficult for many home health and personal care agencies to continue to offer services to Medicaid patients. If these providers are no longer able to serve Colorado’s Medicaid population, the cost of health care goes up as people are forced to seek care in more expensive settings that are nearing a breaking point."

Knox added that to prevent the state’s vulnerable Medicaid population from being locked out of access to safe, cost-effective home health and personal care, reimbursement rates must be updated to keep pace with the rising costs that all health care sectors have experienced.

"More than ever, the time to act is now," he wrote. 

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Members: Join the COVID-19 Discussion Circle TODAY

Posted: April 6, 2020

HHAC has launched a COVID-19 Discussion Circle. Click here to join the circle and to immediately start a discussion thread or reply to a discussion post. You must be signed in as a member to view. 

The COVID-19 is one of a number of discussion circles available at the Home Care & Hospice Association of Colorado website. Others are Background Checks, Electronic Visit Verification, Best Practices, Private Pay and West Slope Forum. See all the discussion circles here.

To find discussion circles in the future go to the HHAC website > Member Center > My Community > View All Circles

Business-Relief Programs Available Under The CARES Act

Posted April 3, 2020

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides assistance to small businesses impacted by COVID-19. Congress did not, however, provide a one-size-fits-all solution, according to the Denver law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Instead, small businesses must determine their eligibility for various assistance programs. 

This guide from the law firm outlines the provisions in the Act to help small businesses determine whether to proceed with an application for a loan, how to claim an elective tax incentive, and how to comply with certain changes in the tax code.

Here are elements of the CARES Act that HHAC has culled from resources it believes to be reliable: 

• The Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) authorizes up to $349 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses to pay their employees during the COVID-19 crisis. All loan terms will be the same for everyone. Fact sheet
• The SBA offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help small businesses meet working capital needs caused by a natural disaster. The loans may be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable, and other bills that could have been paid had the disaster not occurred.
• The SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loan program provides small businesses with working capital loans of up to $2 million that can provide vital economic support to small businesses to help overcome the temporary loss of revenue they are experiencing.
• For small businesses with current non-disaster SBA loans, under the CARES Act, the SBA will cover all loan payments on these loans, including principal, interest, and fees, for six months. This relief will also be available to new borrowers who take out loans within six months of March 27, 2020.
• The CARES Act provides that employers and self-employed individuals may defer payment of the employer share of payroll taxes owed on wages paid for the period ending December 31, 2020.
• The Federal Reserve also indicated it would be announcing a new Main Street Business Lending Program to support lending to eligible small and mid-sized businesses. For its part, the CARES Act clarifies that the mid-sized businesses facility that it has authorized does not limit the Federal Reserve’s discretion in establishing other programs and facilities within the Federal Reserve’s authority, including such Main Street Business Lending Program. As of March 29, 2020 the Main Street Business Lending Program has not been formally announced by the Federal Reserve.
• The Employee Retention Credit is a fully refundable tax credit for employers equal to 50 percent of qualified wages (including allocable qualified health plan expenses) that Eligible Employers pay their employees. This Employee Retention Credit applies to qualified wages paid after March 12, 2020, and before January 1, 2021. The maximum amount of qualified wages taken into account with respect to each employee for all calendar quarters is $10,000, so that the maximum credit for an Eligible Employer for qualified wages paid to any employee is $5,000.
• The CARES Act, in Section 2108, provides funding for those states with existing short-time compensation programs and says that the federal government will fully fund the amount of short-time compensation paid under a state's short-time compensation program.
• The CARES Act has changed the treatment of Net Operating Losses (NOLs) that are generated in tax years 2018, 2019, and 2020 to permit them to be carried back up to five years. This will allow for an immediate claim for refund for taxpayers who had taxable income during the carryback time period

Government’s New Program for Small Businesses Hurt by Coronavirus is Slowed by Snags

Posted: April 3, 2020

mall business owners across the country woke up early Friday morning, desperate to be among the first to apply for a $349-billion federal relief program — the government’s largest effort to date to keep Americans employed through the pandemic. Instead, they confronted problems and delays, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Some of the nation’s largest banks said they weren’t ready to participate, having received information too late from the Treasury Department. Others were overwhelmed, hit with a deluge of applications from millions of business owners trying to stay solvent amid the economic crisis caused by coronavirus-related shutdowns.

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