COVID Developments and News

[Capt Spaulding]

Originally Posted by TommyW

AFAIK the Covid numbers are with Covid and not from Covid. You have a lot of people die from another cause that tested positive that were asymptomatic . Also having to consider the financial benefits of the hospitals for treating Covid patients. I just don’t think we have an accurate study either way. Bottom line is yes people die from it how many will depend on the study you cite.

Evidence??


@Dadhawk, Just how big a premium do hospitals get for 1) treating Covid patients, 2) for listing Covid as a cause of death?

[TylerLieberman]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

Evidence??

I can confirm on the part regarding facilities getting more money for Covid patients. We were also getting additional money for having “surge beds”, which were beds that were left open to accept more Covid positive people. The facility was receiving money for those open beds, even when they were not occupied.

Idk about the first part simply because I don’t remember reading any of that through the research and training I did for work. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said.

[dpfarr]

Originally Posted by humfrz

Back in the day, on the farm, if you were barefoot and stepped on a rusty nail, you should have gotten a tetanus shot.

If the nail wasn't rusty, no problem, unless the nail was covered with pig shit.

My grandfather would just flush out the punctures on my younger brother's foot after he stabbed himself with a nail, with the stuff in the purple bottle plus a swabbing with iodine. However, if his jaw were to lock up, THEN we would have to take him to the vet.

The bacterium Clostridium causes tetanus and doesn’t have anything to do with rusty nails. It’s a soil born pathogen so stepping on a nail, sharp rock, glass are still able to transmit that.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

@Dadhawk, Just how big a premium do hospitals get for 1) treating Covid patients, 2) for listing Covid as a cause of death?

Hospitals do get a 20% increase in Medicare reimbursement for COVID patients, but since most hospitals live and die by medicare reimbursements they aren't likely to do much to upset that in an audit. All other patients, as far as I know, are reimbursed at their payor negotiated rates.

There was some other funding made available not directly related to patient count as @TylerLieberman said. Since a couple of our hospitals are rural, we also got some Federal funding for telemedicine, etc during a specific time, but most of that has ended now.

[TylerLieberman]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Hospitals do get a 20% increase in Medicare reimbursement for COVID patients, but since most hospitals live and die by medicare reimbursements they aren't likely to do much to upset that in an audit. All other patients, as far as I know, are reimbursed at their payor negotiated rates.

There was some other funding made available not directly related to patient count as @TylerLieberman said. Since a couple of our hospitals are rural, we also got some Federal funding for telemedicine, etc during a specific time, but most of that has ended now.

Yeah and since our facility is acute respiratory, all of our patients are on ventilators, which Medicare reimbursed at a higher rate as well. So our facility was taking in Covid patients left and right back in the beginning.

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by dpfarr

The bacterium Clostridium causes tetanus and doesn’t have anything to do with rusty nails. It’s a soil born pathogen so stepping on a nail, sharp rock, glass are still able to transmit that.

Hey, dpfarr. jest hesh up -

You weren't there, back on the farm, in Ohio, in the 1940s, with the nearest vet 15 miles away, and had a pa-pa that could mix up a concoction that could cure almost anything.

So, THERE!



Did I tell you about the time my pa-pa cut an infected boil out of my leg with his pocket knife - oh, I think I did -

[Capt Spaulding]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Hospitals do get a 20% increase in Medicare reimbursement for COVID patients, but since most hospitals live and die by medicare reimbursements they aren't likely to do much to upset that in an audit. All other patients, as far as I know, are reimbursed at their payor negotiated rates.

There was some other funding made available not directly related to patient count as @TylerLieberman said. Since a couple of our hospitals are rural, we also got some Federal funding for telemedicine, etc during a specific time, but most of that has ended now.

I have the impression that TommyW was insinuating that hospitals inflated their Covid numbers to reap a windfall. Thoughts?

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

I have the impression that TommyW was insinuating that hospitals inflated their Covid numbers to reap a windfall. Thoughts?

False, mostly. The only place that could happen is with Medicare patients, and the Government actually does audit that. Could you get away with it, maybe, but it's not worth the risk to owe back the money and lose Medicare reimbursement.

I suppose if you have a patient that, amongst other diseases, also has COVID than it is possible you would code it for both. But you would do that for most things I believe if the patient is treated for both. Say, you come in with a broken leg, and also test positive for the flu.

[TylerLieberman]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

False, mostly. The only place that could happen is with Medicare patients, and the Government actually does audit that. Could you get away with it, maybe, but it's not worth the risk to owe back the money and lose Medicare reimbursement.

I suppose if you have a patient that, amongst other diseases, also has COVID than it is possible you would code it for both. But you would do that for most things I believe if the patient is treated for both. Say, you come in with a broken leg, and also test positive for the flu.

My mom works for banner health on the back end, dealing with insurance and coding/billing stuff and has seen that very frequently through this whole thing. If they have a PMH or are currently positive with Covid, it gets included.

Whether or not that’s done solely for financial benefit would be purely speculatory though, so I can’t say that it is. I can only say that it does happen based on what I’ve seen through different facilities/organizations here in AZ.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by TylerLieberman

Whether or not that’s done solely for financial benefit would be purely speculators though, so I can’t say that it is. I can only say that it does happen based on what I’ve seen through different facilities/organizations here in AZ.

I'm on the IT side, and don't deal much with billing, but it makes sense to me if a patient has COVID there would be some level of billing for it.

It adds cost to the treatment of the patient as you are typically going beyond universal precautions with them.

[Capt Spaulding]

Originally Posted by TylerLieberman

Yeah and since our facility is acute respiratory, all of our patients are on ventilators, which Medicare reimbursed at a higher rate as well. So our facility was taking in Covid patients left and right back in the beginning.

So, what proportion of your facility’s patients were fraudulently coded as Covid sufferers?

[TylerLieberman]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

So, what proportion of your facility’s patients were fraudulently coded as Covid sufferers?

Zero. Not sure what you’re trying to get at.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by TylerLieberman

Zero. Not sure what you’re trying to get at.

Yea, same here, although I know to what the Capt. refers.

There was a lot of crap floating around (not from him) that hospitals were coding COVID just to raise revenue.

I think it was really more around deaths than revenue. I think, but do not know, that some COVID deaths were people that had COVID but died from something else (it wasn't the primary cause of death) but they were counted anyway.

That's two totally different things.

[Capt Spaulding]

Originally Posted by TylerLieberman

Zero. Not sure what you’re trying to get at.

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.