'Our doctors get more money if someone dies of Covid'

I'm sure this will go over really well in a state with a surging infection rate.
Dirty Donnie the Superspreader is sludge of the lowest order.

Donald Trump has attacked the doctors who have been treating coronavirus patients on the frontline of the pandemic. Speaking during a campaign rally in Waterford Township, Michigan, the US president said: 'Our doctors get more money if someone dies from Covid. You know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people.'

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...get-more-money-if-someone-dies-of-covid-video

 

The more procedures you have to do, the more money you make. That is just how American healthcare has worked for longer than I can recall.

 

What does that have to do with covid deaths ? Specifically ?

 

This is preposterous and people who believe in this don't understand what is involved in it.

1. If a patient is POSITIVE for the coronavirus, regardless of whether or not the patient ultimately dies and regardless of whether or not the patient's death certificate has the coronavirus as the cause of death or some other cause (say, a youngster who is positive for the virus suffers a car accident - the cause of death will be trauma, not coronavirus), the HOSPITAL (not the doctor) gets a surplus of 20% because IT COSTS MORE TO TREAT SOMEONE WHO HAS THE CORONAVIRUS. The person will need isolation, the personnel taking care of him/her will need advanced PPE replaced several times, various protocols will need to be in place, disinfection will occur, etc. So, yes, compensation increases but EXPENSES ALSO INCREASE. This supplement is a way for hospitals not to go broke because they are spending much more with the pandemic in equipment and protocols. How much do you suppose a professional PAPR unit costs? Some $1,200 to $2,000, plus supplies. And so on.

2. Also, hospitals repurpose rooms and equipment and personnel that would otherwise be used for lucrative elective procedures. So hospitals are in MORE financial trouble due to the pandemic, and again, to compensate for it, the CARES act provided a 20% supplement (this funding by the way is already gone). Do you want your local hospital to go broke? No? Then it makes sense to give them a supplement.

3. Certain hospitals including governmental ones may have agreements with the employees, that the employees (nurses, respiratory therapists, even janitors, etc.) get hazard pay if they work in a Covid-19 unit. So, again, the hospital spends more with the payroll, and the 20% supplement helps with that.

4. Billing is done by procedure and materials, not by diagnosis. Insurance plans, Medicaid, and Medicare are billed by what is done for and to the patient, what medications were used, how many bags of IV fluid, etc., how much physician time, ICU time, not by the patient's diagnosis. So there isn't any other particular incentive in diagnosing someone with the coronavirus.

5. If someone is positive for Covid-19, the hospital ALREADY gets the 20% supplement so there is no further incentive to fake a death certificate to say it was a death by Covid and not with Covid. By the way, faking a death certificate to get more money from CMS is a serious fraudulent federal felony and will result in loss of accreditation, jail time, disciplinary action, and Medical License sanctions. For what gain? No gain. Because if the patient is positive, that's already counted for the supplement. No need to falsify anything. And a hospital has a Risk Department that monitors all that and reviews deaths. The hospital is NOT interested in being sanctioned by CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) for fraud, and losing accreditation (which would spell the hospital's financial ruin). A physician committing this kind of fraud would be fired and reported to the Medical Board.

------------

Anybody who is under the impression that DOCTORS make more money if they fake a death by Covid on a death certificate simply doesn't know ANYTHING about the business and practice of Medicine, and how billing works. Or else, is saying so for the sake of malicious misinformation with a political purpose (like that liar, Trump).

After all that we've been through to treat our patients in the midst of a dangerous pandemic, Trump saying so is utterly preposterous. Am I glad that I didn't vote for him? Yeah!

 

Bbbbbbbbbbuuuuuuuuttttt that's not what Dirty Donnie meant ! When he said "doctors" he meant " the medical industry in it's entirety".

THEY'RE MAKING A FORTUNE OFF THIS PANDEMIC ! IT'S A LIBERAL PLOT !!!!!

 

Trump 2020

 

The worse off you are the more procedures they run, the more high dollar medicine they move, the more the more the more. A lot of these people who end up dying have protracted deaths with lots and lots of doctors and techs doing billable work

 

And? What's your point? What in the hell does this have to do with the diagnosis?

 

Hospitals are in the red because of the pandemic. It disrupted the much more lucrative business of elective procedures.

 

By the way, in one thing, Donald was right. Yes, we're very smart people. Like the smart doctors who just saved his ass at Walter Reed.

 

Amazing. Trump attacks the very doctors who saved his life.

Any idea what his care cost?

The helicopter to the hospital cost 50k before it even started

 

Poor old awkward Trump.

The accurate statement would have been "our hospitals get more $ if a given patient is admitted with a covid diagnosis on Medicare".

As it was he has alienated those few doctors who did not already hate him.

 

He also put a dollar amount on it, claiming that they get an extra $2,000 for every COVID death. I'm sure he pulled that number right out of his ample behind.

The man is the most despicable example of a human being we've ever had in the White House. He has the blood of tens of thousands of Americans on his hands.

 

Oh ffs! How clueless are Trump's supporters about doctors, nurses, and hospitals?

There is no bounty on COVID patients.

Nurses and doctors who work hospital emergency rooms and ICUs get a salary just like everybody else. They don't get bonuses for putting people on respirators. They don't get extra pay for some of the extra hours they're spending, caring for the dying and making sure that at least someone who cares is with them when they pass. These people are coming away with tears all the time, caring for our loved ones and feeling despair over those they can't save.

To denigrate these people by claiming that they're in it for the money is beyond depraved. I hope you don't have to experience the fear and anguish over being sick yourself or having a sick or dying loved one, but perhaps if you did, you'd have at least a f@*&ing clue about what it means to be a caring human being.

 

Wow. How profound. I look forward to ypur next brain fart with great anticipation.

 

I've talked to several healthcare professionals, from ambulance crews to hospital staff, in private. In this part of Florida there WAS pressure within the system to code new admissions as Covid. That was months ago. The first time I heard it described as a scam was from someone on the inside.

 

Jesus Christ