COVID Developments and News

[TylerLieberman]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

In an earlier post, TommW recited a trope that has been floating around for two years. Namely, that published Covid numbers can’t be trusted because the medical community deliberately misrepresents patient numbers for financial reasons. I’m not so naïve as to believe that Medicare fraud doesn’t exist, but I am also confident that it does not play a significant part in the Covid numbers we see reported. I just thought I’d ask some folks who might know. Thanks.

Gotcha.

I’m of a similar mindset, which is that surely there is fraud that sway the numbers, but I don’t believe those instances are in the hundreds OF thousands in numbers. More like hundreds OR thousands. Meaning that while the current US case/death numbers are like 50mil and 800k, I’m sure the actual numbers are still about 50mil and maybe like 775-780k(arbitrary numbers)? Is that a difference? Yes. Is it the same as saying the actual numbers are more like 20mil and 300k? Nope.

Now, being that we know there are financial benefits for facilities to be working with Covid patients, I’m sure facilities take advantage of that by including it as much as possible, when appropriate, and that there are other facilities that have potentially lied in a few instances. How many? I have no idea. But again, I can’t imagine it being a substantially high number. Though if somebody has real evidence of there being an abundance of fraud regarding the reporting of the cases/deaths, I’d happily look. But it needs to be real evidence; not some “anonymous source” saying they know somebody who knows somebody who works at a facility and says they saw thousands of cases of fraud or something ridiculous like that.

I can only really use based on what I’ve seen at my facility at work at because I see all the reports and documentation and am at the meetings that discuss these things. I know that we are an acute respiratory facility and are all trach/vent patients. We have very few (less than 10) patients who are NOT trach/vent but are still there because they require Dialysis, which we have in house/on site.

So, the facility gets extra money for working with Covid patients and even more should they require the use of a ventilator. Admissions will surely try to take advantage of that by getting Covid/vent patients since we have the means of working with them. We were also getting money to hold those surge beds like I had mentioned before, meaning we kept a few beds open specifically for Covid patients, should we need to take some in. At one point, we had like 7 or 8 beds open specifically for that, but that was late last year/early this year during the peak of everything. Not the case any more.

So, I believe that facilities are definitely doing what they can to capitalize on the financial benefit of working with Covid patients, and I’m sure there are a few bad apples out there who have fudged numbers deliberately when they shouldn’t have. But again, I don’t think that’s happened enough to make a big dent in the overall numbers.

I believe the same with the reported case numbers, in the sense that I’m sure there have been false positives or over reporting of positive cases in some instances. However, I’m sure there’s been plenty of false negatives too, so I still don’t think it’s enough to make any real difference in the total tally for cases/deaths. I’d say maybe a couple thousand off in total for both, for a variety of reasons, between fraud, mistakes, inaccurate testing, and so on.

[Atropine]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

In an earlier post, TommW recited a trope that has been floating around for two years. Namely, that published Covid numbers can’t be trusted because the medical community deliberately misrepresents patient numbers for financial reasons. I’m not so naïve as to believe that Medicare fraud doesn’t exist, but I am also confident that it does not play a significant part in the Covid numbers we see reported. I just thought I’d ask some folks who might know. Thanks.

This is accurate...I saw it happen some at the beginning of the Pandemic so it lead to a lot of us frontline workers thinking it was rampant. And then it was cracked down upon etc. I don't firsthand see it that often anymore. I am just basing this off of CPT Codes used to justify X-Rays and CT Scans (my lane).

And yeah...insurance fraud happens everywhere...even not when in a pandemic. An old employer got their Medicare reiumbursement reduced due to this...they were then bought about less than 2 years later, because that probation caused them to lose a ton of money and all of a sudden operate in the red.

One other thing to add...the died with and because of COVID argument is often mixed in with or conflated with the underlying health problem thing. There was a credible study that pointed that like 96% (?) of the COVID deaths had underlying health problems like Diabetes, obesity etc etc. And there were crazy examples like the guy who got shot by cops...and then lived in an ICU on life support for like a month and then died...and they tested him for COVID and he tested positive, and that was counted as a COVID death.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...virus-70941694

[Lantanafrs2]

Imo they need to shut down testing sites. If you're sick, go to the doctor and get tested.

[Lantanafrs2]

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/...a65b455253a85f

Healthcare workers who test positive no longer need to isolate for 10 days

[Lantanafrs2]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dangero...te-11640107759

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by Lantanafrs2

Imo they need to shut down testing sites. If you're sick, go to the doctor and get tested.

And infect everyone in the doctors office? I don't see what is wrong with specialized testing sites.

[spike021]

Originally Posted by Lantanafrs2

Imo they need to shut down testing sites. If you're sick, go to the doctor and get tested.

This doesn't work for a variety of reasons.

I'd wager one of the most common being that many people don't have a PCP (various reasons even for that). I don't currently.

We're not like Japan or other places that have clinics of some kind in most neighborhoods for walk-ins or whatever. It's just not really feasible.

What I will say: if we had a mail-order test program like the UK does where we can request tests and be sent them by the government with a quick return that's easy to slip in the mail or whatever, we could maybe start trying to use those and wean people off the test centers. But we're nowhere close to that yet.

[TommyW]

The worst case of fraud I have knowledge of was an employees father dying of a heart attack and having an organization (he didn’t name it) offer to pay for the funeral if the family signed a doc that stated that he died from Covid. I’m sure this wasn’t an isolated incident but probably (hopefully) rare.

Also friends that get false positives I understand that there are different levels of testing and some of the super sensitive tests will show positive with a very minute amount of the virus present while others will show negative due to less sensitivity?

[TylerLieberman]

Originally Posted by Lantanafrs2

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/...a65b455253a85f

Healthcare workers who test positive no longer need to isolate for 10 days

Largely due to staffing shortages though. A lot of facilities (here in AZ) are struggling; ours included. I’m sure it’s similar I’m various places around the country.

Every department at our facility is short staffed aside from therapy. I mean, technically we are too, but we’re able to make it work and still see everybody on the case load thanks to the hard work from our RNA staff and therapy tech

[spike021]

https://missouriindependent.com/2021...l-of-covid-19/

In Cape Girardeau County, the coroner hasn’t pronounced a single person dead of COVID-19 in 2021.

Wavis Jordan, a Republican who was elected last year to serve as coroner of the 80,000-person county, says his office “doesn’t do COVID deaths.” He does not investigate deaths himself, and requires families to provide proof of a positive COVID-19 test before including it on a death certificate.

[wbradley]

Originally Posted by TommyW

The worst case of fraud I have knowledge of was an employees father dying of a heart attack and having an organization (he didn’t name it) offer to pay for the funeral if the family signed a doc that stated that he died from Covid. I’m sure this wasn’t an isolated incident but probably (hopefully) rare.

Death certificate are signed by a physician who is held professionally liable. I have never heard of the family of the deceased signing a consent for the cause of death. I suspect there's gross misinformation present in your statement.

It appears some people believe that jf the majority of fatalities with Covid19 had co-morbidities, therefore the Covid19 did not actually cause their deaths.
Incorrect logic. Covid19 created mortality with those most vulnerable, but living. And you simply cannot deny a profound uptick in mortality related to Covid19, unless you consider all humans living with co-morbidities to be writeoffs. Sounds like 3rd world to me.

[TommyW]

Originally Posted by wbradley

Death certificate are signed by a physician who is held professionally liable. I have never heard of the family of the deceased signing a consent for the cause of death. I suspect there's gross misinformation present in your statement.

.

No. It was a real situation

Actually was just reading the piece that someone posted above. Some excerpts:
The essential, unreliable death certificate
When people die, their death and its causes must be certified and registered according to state laws. A death certificate is the last legal document someone leaves behind, and one of the most important. But they can be as unreliable as they are essential.

“I was absolutely outraged. Because none of the things on her death certificate was her cause of death,” Payton said. Over the years, “the same thing happened with my mother, my father, and my brother. All of their death certificates are incorrect.”

and Yes it did state in one of the pieces that the free funeral is a real thing.

You can argue all you want, your personal views are your personal views. The funeral thing sounded far fetched until I saw it happen

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by wbradley

Death certificate are signed by a physician who is held professionally liable. I have never heard of the family of the deceased signing a consent for the cause of death. I suspect there's gross misinformation present in your statement.

It appears some people believe that jf the majority of fatalities with Covid19 had co-morbidities, therefore the Covid19 did not actually cause their deaths.
Incorrect logic. Covid19 created mortality with those most vulnerable, but living. And you simply cannot deny a profound uptick in mortality related to Covid19, unless you consider all humans living with co-morbidities to be writeoffs. Sounds like 3rd world to me.

Keep in mind - they are talking Missouri here -

[TylerLieberman]

I’m sure there’s been instances of that happening with false causes on a death certificate. No idea as to the frequency of it, but there are benefits to be gained from having Covid listed as the cause or a contributing factor of death, depending on the date of death, as listed here:

https://www.fema.gov/disaster/corona...ral-assistance