Tanner News

Federal CARES Act funds were established by Congress to serve as a source of relief for healthcare organizations who are laboring under the cost of caring for COVID-19 patients while coping with the lost revenue from discontinuing almost all elective services.

During March and April alone, Tanner experienced a loss of $66 million in revenue due to the pandemic and the cancellation of all elective procedures, tests and appointments.

At Tanner, we have continued to submit documentation to federal and state agencies on the number of COVID-19 patients who have received care in our hospitals. We have been extremely careful to ensure the accuracy of our reporting to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other agencies.

On April 12, per the federal deadline, we reported to HHS the number of inpatient COVID-19 patients we’ve served by facility. We were aware that we did not meet the threshold necessary for this particular distribution of federal funds.

On May 7, our organization received an award of more than $62.6 million in federal relief funds as part of a fast-paced distribution from HHS. Immediately upon learning of the disbursement, our financial team realized that the disbursement was significantly more than anticipated and began an internal investigation, reaching out to HHS and state and professional organizations to inquire about the calculation used to determine the funding.  

We were not notified that we had qualified for the funds nor that the funds were being dispersed.

We continue to have frequent communications with HHS for updated information.

Tanner has not and will not use funds that we believe were dispersed in error. We are holding these funds until we receive clarification from HHS and will decline any monies for which we are not qualified.