Posted on 05/07/2020 1:07:47 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Hospitals in the United States could lose more than $500 billion in 100 days during the coronavirus pandemic, according to former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin. While Congress has appropriated $175 billion in total stimulus funding to hospitals, he said even that amount will not be enough to close the fiscal gap hospitals are facing.
Some major institutions have already begun pay cuts, furloughs, and layoffs of hospital staff, deepening a growing unemployment crisis, and leaving some former hospital workers without health insurance.
There is no hospital in the country, I dont think, that could survive a year of whats happened in March and April, said Jefferson Health CEO Dr. Stephen Klasko, who also serves as president of Thomas Jefferson University.
One of the primary reasons for the fiscal shortfalls at many hospitals is the slowing rate or full suspension in some states of elective procedures - which in some cases include everything from knee replacements to liver transplants. For U.S. hospitals, elective procedures typically close the fiscal gap created by treating patients whose care comes at a higher cost - like coronavirus patients, who may remain in intensive care units for extended stays.
You rely upon your highly profitable surgical cases that are with insured patients, especially commercially insured, and this is the exact kind of thing weve seen in this crisis. The biggest hit has been to those profitable services, Shulkin said.
Approximately 97 percent of health systems are losing $2,800 per coronavirus patient, with many losing between $8,000 and $10,000, according to a study commissioned and performed by Strata Decision Technologies.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Oh, him again.
The whole point of the shutdown was to prevent hospitals from getting swamped. So we forced them to turn away all other types of patients and now they are going to all go broke instead. Yay big government solutions!
All part of the plan. Small, mostly rural hospitals will declare bankruptcy. The Feds will bail out and take over these.
In other words, a national hospital system, ala Amtrak, USPS etc.
But we saved the healthcare system, eh, Dr. Fauci?
From what I understand, the Administration is paying all ChinaVirus expenses with the idea that no one should hesitate going to a doctor if they feel they have it. The US government is paying up to $39,000 per patient depending on what was done. That is why so many hospitals are padding the numbers by listing non-virus cases as if they actually are. There was an article this past week about funeral directors in NY complaining about the inaccuracies and several doctors have made the news saying the same.
Wait til you see what its gonna do to Obamacare.
If it was proven Chicoms carried out this mass global murder in the 50s they would have been annihilated. No question about it. But times change and globalists, free traders, Middle East wars contrived by neocons, WTO, and others have them strong and us in debt forever.
32mil unemployed. Add a spouse and a kid. .100mil.
One third of the population have had their lives destroyed by the government. I wonder how many government “workers” were fired?
Well, you do away with your profitable lines of business (e.g., elective surgery & medical tests such as CT/CAT scans) this is what happens. Time to RESTART THE ECONOMYS ENGINES.
My livelihood rests on understanding hospital economics. The idiocy is beyond what I would have thought possible.
All those doctor visits and hospitalizations that did NOT happen March - May will manifest within months and get stacked on top of the normal demand. When people are locked down, isolated, sedentary, anxious, drinking too much — common sense suggests that their long-term health gets worse, not better. I imagine that the 12-month non-COVID demand for health care in the US will increase, not decrease; and if hospitals were essentially shut down for, say 75 days in the spring, then that’s 75 days worth of demand that will be added later.
If a modest second COVID wave is expected in the fall just as flu season is also ramping up; and if the pent up demand I refer to above becomes apparent by summer’s end — then woa, Nellie.
And yet hospital and health system executives are now laying off their frontline clinicians. More idiocy.
There is work that must be done. We must re-open the country, cautiously of course and in stages; but also resolutely, deliberately and ambituously.
My spouse needs to see the cardiologist because he is moving slowly and may have to run some tests. We almost feel like criminals. They have called, sent text, email - do you have fever? Have you been sick? Have you been out of the country? Have you had coronavirus? Have you been around anyone who has had coronavirus? Do you have mask?
I am tired of answering. Wish we did not have to go for the appointment. Even doctors cant go forever without seeing ordinary patients.
Well said, and I agree 100%.
Some news for AP, it isn’t the treating coronavirus that’s breaking them. It’s the lockdown for the fear of it.
Thanks, big media! You’re bankrupting our hospitals, my brother works at Mayo Clinic, they laid off or reduced hours for 30,000 employees. My wife is a nurse and worked w days a week for a while, now back to full time, my daughter is a dental assistant, and hasn’t worked since the first week of March.
“We must re-open the country, cautiously of course and in stages;”
What is this deal about “cautiously and in stages”? Open up right now, alright, already! People know what to do now. If there are more Covid cases, we know our hospitals can handle it. Give people hydroxychloroquine, beat this virus and get America going again tomorrow!
Hospital medicare billing 13000 diagnosis and 39000 ventilator, $52000 per patient how are the coffers being drained
The article refers to a liver transplant as an elective surgery. Say what?
Pretty dang near zero.
No treating Covid-19 is not draining the hospital coffers. It’s not being allowed to perform elective surgeries.
“Open up right now, alright, already! People know what to do now. If there are more Covid cases, we know our hospitals can handle it. Give people hydroxychloroquine, beat this virus and get America going again tomorrow!”
On the merits you may be right. But ... This needs to be bipartisan, well grounded and reasonably consensual. Being right isn’t the only consideration here; and moreover, once the economy starts re-opening, it will accelerate on its own. We mostly need to get moving and realize that there is great urgency in using big chunks of our national infrastructure — not just hospitals — at or near capacity as soon as opportunities present.
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