Garbarino launches inquiry into $1B in COVID reimbursements that NY hospitals haven't received

WASHINGTON — Long Island GOP Rep. Andrew Garbarino has launched a congressional inquiry into more than $1 billion in federal COVID-19 disaster reimbursements that remain unpaid to health networks in New York State and billions of dollars more owed nationally for these emergency expenses.

"Severely delinquent" is how Garbarino (R-Bayport) describes the tardy or slow Federal Emergency Management Agency payments under a Public Assistance Program tied to a disaster that ended in 2023.

"In New York, it is my understanding that more than $1 billion went through every check and balance but is still pending obligation specifically for hospitals," Garbarino wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Garbarino, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, told Noem his panel will be conducting "oversight" to ensure the payments are more swiftly processed and disbursed.

He also told Noem to provide the committee a briefing on the matter no later than Wednesday and to provide a menu of documents and communications dating from Jan. 25, 2025 by next week. Those include “a list of all outstanding COVID-19 disaster hospital public assistance reimbursement claims, to include but not limited to application date, location, and dollar amounts.”

Emergency expenses

These reimbursements were designed to help hospitals pay for the significant added financial burdens they incurred in expanding their operations and staff during the COVID crisis, including critical equipment like ventilators and supplies of personal protective equipment.

Many of these actions were taken at the request of state or local governments.

Officials at two New York hospital associations on Wednesday confirmed that, while payments received under this compensation so far have been essential, there are significant claims still owed to at least a dozen health systems in the state, including on Long Island. They declined to name those hospitals.

Garbarino’s staff also did not name the hospitals and did not have estimates for similar reimbursements owed to heath systems nationally.

Officials at the American Hospital Association declined Wednesday to talk about Garbarino’s effort or the national picture. 

But in May, the AHA reported it was urging a FEMA review council to act on what was then about $6.9 billion in funding for hospital COVID-19 projects that had yet to be distributed. The AHA also wrote there was then nearly $1 billion in projects that were reviewed but not yet approved for funding and more than 1,000 projects that were submitted but not yet reviewed.

"Even though this emergency officially ended in 2023 ... many claims have yet to be paid by FEMA," the AHA wrote, complaining also of "the extensive and often redundant administrative burdens imposed by FEMA’s complex and multilevel review process."

FEMA, in a statement to Newsday, said, "FEMA continues to work through the standard review process for all remaining COVID-related funding requests."

"We are in regular communication with the New York State Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Services to ensure all necessary information is in place for FEMA to make eligibility and funding determinations," the statement added. 

Review process

But whether FEMA is doing that work quickly enough and with new complexity are questions Garbarino’s letter raises.

Complaints are that FEMA has changed its process to rereview all COVID-19 claims — including some that have already been paid and closed — including required approvals by the secretary to claims over $100,000. A main argument is that FEMA’s new practices have changed the rules years after some claims have been submitted.

"In the interests of the nation’s hospitals and public health infrastructure, claims which have already been reviewed and approved by FEMA must be swiftly obligated and disbursed," Garbarino wrote, "and not subject to additional and potentially duplicative reviews instituted by the department."

Garbarino added: "FEMA must expedite the review and obligation of all outstanding COVID-19 hospital reimbursement claims to ease the burden on our nation’s health infrastructure."

Cristina Batt, senior vice president of federal policy for the Healthcare Association of New York State, confirmed Garbarino’s claim that more than $1 billion is stilled owed to more than a dozen New York health systems. She underscored that this money is "directly connected to response to COVID-19, including the hiring of added nurses and doctors, and the acquisition of added medical equipment.

Jon Cooper, the senior vice president of government affairs at the Greater New York Hospital Association, on Wednesday praised Garbarino for taking action on a problem he said has lingered. "Obviously New York was hit extremely hard," he said of the pandemic, and the reimbursements "are long overdue."

Cooper also noted that health systems and hospitals are now staring at cuts to Medicaid reimbursements with passage last year of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Of Garbarino’s fight to speed up the reimbursements dating from a public health emergency that ended nearly three years ago, he said, "It’s an extremely big deal."