HHS Announces 1st Round of Covid-19 Incentive Payments to Nursing Homes

On October 28, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it will issue roughly $333 million in COVID-19 performance payments to more than 10,000 nursing homes across the United States. Protecting residents in nursing homes has become a high priority. Due to various resources and training available to nursing homes to improve infection control, facilities are making progress in the fight against COVID-19. This first round of payments will be distributed as a stimulus, rewarding facilities that have sustained safer environments for their residents between the months of August and September. Specifically, nursing homes nationwide displaying lower infection and mortality rates than the neighboring nursing homes in their community, will receive an average payment of $25,323, set to be distributed next week. This is only the average, and amounts will vary by facility. We have learned that this first payment may excludes the calculation related to regional mortality, as HHS is still working to implement a method to calculate this and it will be updated in future payments.

Of the 13,795 eligible facilities to receive this outcome-based payment, 10,631 (77%) have qualified. Per HHS, facilities will have four more opportunities to receive incentive payments. These future rounds of similar distributions are scheduled to be released on a monthly basis going forward.

Please see the table below for the most current provider relief fund nursing home quality incentive allocations, as provided by HHS, broken down by state. The total figures provided on this chart will be updated by HHS as more rewards are released.