Published: 6/30/22

Medicare Sequester Cuts

Medicare sequestration cuts will fully resume on July 1^st, 2022. This budget control mechanism has been temporarily suspended during the majority of the COVID-19 public health emergency, partially resuming in April of this year.

Since 2013, Medicare has been subject to an automatic annual “sequestration” cut of 2% as required by the Budget Control Act of 2011 which was postponed at the start of the COVID-19 PHE.

In late 2021, Congress passed the Protecting Medicare and American Farmers from Sequester Cuts Act which phased the sequester back into effect in 2022 with the following timeline:

• 0% applied between January 1^st – March 31^st
• -1% applied between April 1^st – June 31^st
• -2% applied beginning July 1^st

Under the legislation, the -2% sequester cut will be in place until fiscal year 2030, when the cut will increase to -2.25% for the first six months and then to -3% for the remainder of the year.

Provider Relief Fund

As a reminder, providers who received provider relief fund payments exceeding $10,000, in the aggregate, between January 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021 are required to report on their use of funds for Reporting Period 3.

• The PRF Reporting Portal will be open between July 1, 2022 and September 30, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. ET for Reporting Period 3.
• More details on how to complete PRF reporting are available here: https://www.hrsa.gov/provider-relief/reporting-auditing/how-report

As always, ADVOCATE will keep you up to date on this and all issues impacting medical groups as they become available.

Kayley Jaquet

Manager, Regulatory Affairs