CMS Confirms Medicare Loan Recoupment Delay

As we previously reported, providers who received loans this spring through the Medicare Accelerated and Advance Payment Programs were due to have Medicare claim reimbursements withheld by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) beginning in August to recoup those loans.  Providers have reported that CMS had not yet taken action to recoup the loan amounts.  This week, CMS Administrator, Seema Verma, confirmed in an interview with Modern Healthcare that CMS was waiting on recoupment efforts while Congress negotiated the repayment terms.  The U.S. House of Representatives approved a short-term funding bill on September 22 to avoid government shutdown that contains provisions to delay the recoupment of the loans, lower the per-claim recoupment, and lower the interest rate on the loans.