St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

BANGOR — The federal government has apparently agreed to continue to reimburse St. Mary’s Health System for health care services for at least 30 days, according to a Joint Status Report submitted in its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services.

The hospital system was left with less than 10 days of cash on hand when it filed its complaint Jan. 10 in U.S. District Court.

Roughly half of St. Mary’s typical revenue comes from Medicare and Medicare Advantage.

St. Mary’s received nine total of more than $5 million in COVID-19 pandemic payments. It fulfilled reporting requirements for the first seven. However, internal miscommunications amid a change in personnel at St. Mary’s resulted in the system not filing its report on the last two payments in a timely manner.

For this, the government ordered the hospital to return the money and began withholding health care payments, including those through Medicare.

In its lawsuit, St. Mary’s is asking the court to order the federal government to reinstate health care funding and dismiss its requirement to return the last two payments.

“Starting today and for a period of 30 days there will be no offsets recouping payments on the two provider relief fund debts at issue, which has been referred to fiscal service’s cross-servicing program,” the report reads.

Neither St. Mary’s nor the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responded to several requests for further comment on the matter Thursday.