Graduate Medical Education Payment Program Alert: FY 2009 Reconciliation Application Cycle Update – Alert #1

Transition to Payment Management System, Reconciliation Application Cycle and Deadlines

Transition to the Payment Management System

This is to notify you that there are preliminary indications that disbursement of payments to Children’s Hospitals for both direct and indirect graduate medical education payments will be available through the Grant Payment Management System (PMS).  This is only a potential change in the process by which children’s hospitals receive the funds.  To date, CHGME direct and indirect graduate medical education payments, were wired electronically to a bank account specified by the institution.  Starting with July 2009, the intention is to have CHGME payments available for monthly draws through the Grant PMS.

The PMS is a centralized grants payment and cash management system, operated by the HHS Program Support Center (PSC), Division of Payment Management (DPM). The PMS accomplishes all payment-related activities for HHS grants from the time of award through closeout. Under this system, recipients (children’s hospitals participating in the CHGME Payment Program) will be responsible for drawing down their monthly allotted payments and complying with all rules, regulations, and policies associated with the PMS. 

Preliminary checks by the HRSA Division of Grants Management indicate that many of the children’s hospitals are registered and are already utilizing PMS to draw down funds  for other grants.  Please check with your institutions to ensure that you already have access to the PMS system and that your institutions know how to draw down funds.  Starting with July, provided that this transition is completed, children’s hospitals would have to draw down their own monthly funds following terms and conditions specified by a Notice of Grant Award (NGA).  The NGA will replace the notice of award letters and vouchers that were previously sent by the program. These NGA’s will be sent via email to the person from your facility that has the authority to draw down the monthly funds.  The NGAs will be sent by the staff in the Division of Grants Management and not by CHGME program staff.

Please do the following:

1. Check with your institution to ensure that you have access to the PMS
2. Identify the individual authorized to draw down the funds
3. Notify the Regional Manager with the following information via email by March 31, 2009:
1. Current access to PMS
2. Identify the Project Director (PD) or CFO that will perform the monthly draw down, their physical address, email address and phone number

The FY 2009 Reconciliation Application

If you are new to your organization you will be asked to complete the HRSA Security Training online prior to doing your reconciliation application.  Please notify your regional manager for further direction.

To complete your application please log onto https://chgmeapplication.hrsa.gov/default.asp and read the Rules of Behavior online, check off that you have had security training (item number 2) and select “Accept” at the bottom of the document. You will then be able to log into the system and then reset your password.

The CHGME Payment Program will be available to answer questions and help you through this process.  If you are having difficulty, please contact your RM for help.   

The CHGME Payment Program is drawing to a close its FY 2009 Resident Full-time Equivalent (FTE) Assessment Program.  Congratulations to all children's hospitals and their CHGME fiscal intermediaries (FIs) who continue to make this statutory requirement a success.

Children’s hospitals are reminded, that they should have in their possession a copy of their CHGME FI’s final Resident FTE Assessment Report.  The CHGME FIs included, as part of their final resident FTE assessment report for each hospital, an electronic HRSA 99-1 which reflects the results of their findings.  These results must be used by the children’s hospitals to complete their FY 2009 reconciliation applications.  As you log on to fill out your reconciliation application, the FI’s findings will be pre-populated in the correct columns and rows for reference. Please also note that hospitals should follow-up with their Medicare and/or CHGME FI, as appropriate, to ensure that they have the most recent, up-to-date copies of their Medicare cost reports (MCRs), CMS 2552-96 Worksheet E-3, Part IVs and Part VI, for each applicable year identified in their FY 2009 CHGME Payment Program reconciliation application.  If an MCR is currently or was previously in a settled or resettled status, the CHGME PP expects the hospital to include with their FY 2009 CHGME Payment Program reconciliation application the “matching” Worksheet E-3, Part IVs and E-3, Part VI, where applicable, for each year identified. 

As a footnote, children's hospitals are also reminded that the Resident FTE Assessment Program is an ongoing process as children’s hospitals will continue to reflect data from more recently completed MCR periods in future CHGME Payment Program applications for funding.  For this reason, hospitals are strongly encouraged to continue their communications with their Medicare and CHGME FIs as they move forward and prepare for the FY 2010 CHGME Payment Program initial application cycle and the respective FY 2010 resident FTE assessment process.

Following the reconciliation application cycle, the CHGME Payment Program will recalculate payments based on changes reported by children’s hospitals in their reconciliation applications.    Changes to monthly payment amounts reflect adjustments as a result of the Resident FTE Assessment Program and the processing of participating children’s hospitals reconciliation applications will begin in July 2009.

Medicare GME Affiliation Agreement (for an Aggregate Cap):

Hospitals planning to participate in a Medicare GME Affiliation Agreement for Academic Year 2009-2010 (July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2010) are reminded that July 1, 2009 is the filing deadline to submit completed, fully executed, signed Medicare GME Affiliation Agreements to your Medicare FI with a copy to the CMS. Questions regarding Medicare GME Affiliation Agreements should be directed to your Medicare FI.

As always, if additional information or assistance is needed, please contact your CHGME Payment Program designated regional manager: