Emergency room personnel care for patients at St. Charles Bend in August 2021.

Medical centers and professionals received another influx cash from the federal government to offset losses from increased testing and services used to fight the pandemic.

St. Charles Bend received the most with more than $11 million, and Praxis Medical Group Inc., which operates High Lakes Health Care, received $503,094 under the American Rescue Plan rural health care grants.

While the money helps medical professionals from small offices to organizations in Central Oregon that are as large as St. Charles, it doesn’t completely erase costs associated with setting up emergency operations, lost revenues and ramp-up costs.

“It’s hard to make a direct relationship between the half a million we received and the millions of dollars we spent on infrastructure to test, immunize and protect employees,” said Dan McCarthy, Praxis Medical Group regional administrator. “We built our infrastructure with the belief it would be multiyear.”

More than $118 million was distributed to 481 rural health care providers in Oregon. The average payment was about $170,700, according to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Medical providers in Bend received $12.4 million, in Redmond $82,126, in Prineville $204,747, in Madras $116,305 and in La Pine $8,421.

The funds are the first wave of $8.5 billion designated to reimburse rural health care providers who serve rural Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program and Medicare patients for COVID-19 costs and lost revenues. The funds were distributed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and are part of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 economic stimulus package approved by Congress earlier this year.

“I saw and heard firsthand when I met with staff at St. Charles this summer how deep the financial and emotional impact has been on the staff working long hours to save lives,” said Wyden in an email. “I’m gratified these resources are en route to St. Charles so its health care workers can continue to keep residents of Central Oregon healthy.”

The funds are in addition to those received by these organizations from federal Payroll Protection Program and other Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act funds, a $2.2 trillion stimulus package.

“We’re appreciative of the funding and believe it is completely necessary in our current financial environment,” said Lisa Goodman, St. Charles Health System spokeswoman. “We are still in the process of evaluating and assigning these dollars, which will be used to offset costs associated with caring for COVID-19 patients and to soften the impact of lost revenues due to the many thousands of surgeries we have had to cancel.”

Earlier this year, St. Charles announced it could not accommodate any elective surgeries that required an overnight stay because it had too many patients.

More than 55,000 rural applications were received by the federal human services department, which has processed 96% of them, according to the website. Health care providers can use the funds to address workforce challenges and to make up for lost revenues and increased expenses caused by COVID-19. Payments were determined by the number of claims processed from Jan. 1, 2019, through Sept. 30, 2020. Minimum payments were $500.