Corona Virus Update

Or not,

Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilators
Michelle Rogers
USA TODAY Network

Our ruling: True
We rate the claim that hospitals get paid more if patients are listed as COVID-19 and on ventilators as TRUE.

Hospitals and doctors do get paid more for Medicare patients diagnosed with COVID-19 or if it's considered presumed they have COVID-19 absent a laboratory-confirmed test, and three times more if the patients are placed on a ventilator to cover the cost of care and loss of business resulting from a shift in focus to treat COVID-19 cases.

This higher allocation of funds has been made possible under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act through a Medicare 20% add-on to its regular payment for COVID-19 patients, as verified by USA TODAY through the American Hospital Association Special Bulletin on the topic.

Our fact-check sources

• The Spectator: "Hospitals get more to list patients as COVID-19 and three times as much if the patient goes on ventilator"
• The World Net Daily: "Hospitals get paid more to list patients as COVID-19"
• Snopes: "Is Medicare paying hospitals $13K for patients diagnosed with COVID-19, $39K for those on ventilators
• PolitiFact: "Hospitals get paid more to list patients as COVID-19"
• Kaiser Health News: "Estimated cost for treating the uninsured hospitalized with COVID-19"
• Factcheck.org: "Hospital Payments and the COVID-19 Death Count"
• Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: "Guidance for Certifying Death Due to COVID-19"
• Verywellhealth.com: "How a DRG determines how much a hospital gets paid"
• American Hospital Association Special Bulletin
• American Hospital Association special bulletin.
• Email response from Marty Makary, a surgeon and professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ore-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/

Coronavirus Update: CMS Releases Guidance Implementing CARES Act Provision
https://www.aha.org/advisory/2020-0...es-guidance-implementing-cares-act-provisions

 

I get it.

 

British Columbia has one big city with 2.5m people and the rest of 5m living in smaller communities. Australia has even a greater percentage of people living in large cities--Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth. Canada as a whole is as urbanized as Australia.

Like Australia, most of the everyday folks living in large cities aren't poor like they are in the United States. (Canada and Australia have a similar Gini corfficient.) I think the fault lines in society are a bit more exposed in Toronto and Montreal that have been hit harder by the virus.

They're lucky to live in a place that has suppressed the virus and then live in the countryside. Very much the same for the areas in British Columbia outside of Vancouver.

 

The authors exploit the fact that two Fox News evening shows, Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight, responded very differently to the initial news about the coronavirus. While Carlson warned of the potential dangers of the virus from early February, Hannity first ignored it, then compared it to seasonal flu and said the Democrats were using it as a political weapon. The researchers surveyed 1,500 Republicans (more likely to watch Fox News) over 55 years of age (more likely to be at risk) about the shows they watched on Fox and asked whether they changed behavior (canceled travel plans, washed hands more frequently, practiced social distancing) as a response to the shows they viewed.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article242644031.html#storylink=cpy

 

It's one of the things you can do with a drunken sailor.

 

Aye,aye!

 

Lockdown saved lives.

Commonse.

Not a magical virus.

 

My baby bro died sunday. Covid.

He was 52.

 

Sympathy to you.

 

66

Good. We can agree on somehing

 

Likely a conspiracy theory. I don't think any nation benefits from INCREASING numbers.

 

That's the part I don't understand. Why would that be the case in a rural area, specifically? We're finding rural people are more 'paranoid' than city people. They even put (strongly worded) signs up at town limits telling outsiders to turn around and go home.

 

Either way, it's cities which are the problem. Very little COVID anywhere else here, and huge swathes of the nation have none at all. Wealth can't save you, because even if you can easily afford to buy a country property somewhere 'safe', you can't get to it.

My poor relatives wouldn't consider themselves among the 'lucky' normally, but their entire perspective has changed. Just as it has for all those rich folk in the cities.

 

I'm very sorry.

 

Sorry to hear that, OM. Condolences to your family.

 

There is no evidence that the trajectory of the virus was at all changed when countries locked down. All lockdowns “accomplish” are economic damage and herd immunity delay.

 

Thanks.

It will get worse . imo

 

I'm so sorry to hear this. Good thoughts to you and your family.

 

By the time this runs iits course therewill be evidence . Not a magical virus . We understand contagions.and the cience involved.

 

There is evidence now that lockdowns do not work. They do more damage overall.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20078717v1.full.pdf

 

Incorrect. There is one unpublished paper that has not undergone peer review, that argues there is evidence as such.

One paper is not evidence. How many papers contradict these findings?

It also ignores findings well known from previous pandemics.

 

Peer review is meaningless.

We are discussing the coronavirus pandemic.

 

I'm sorry for your loss. 52 is too young.

 

Some friends transferred to their summer home on Saturna Island, BC after businesses here were shut down. BC never had a lockdown. They self-isolated for two weeks when they got there. COVID-19? Nowhere around.

 

First and foremost, lockdowns are non-essential gatherings, examples;

Restaurants



Sporting events



Boat cruises



Beaches



Casinos



Bars/pubs



Schools