You may have heard claims from politicians that the coronavirus death toll numbers are exaggerated because hospitals get paid more if their patients are listed as COVID19 related.
This claim has been widely disputed but its true. As USA Today reports:
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.
The consequences of this factor on hospital funding result in exactly what you'd expect, as was recently explained By the DailyWire's Amanda Prestigiacomo:
Pennsylvania has had to remove hundreds of coronavirus deaths from its official death count this week, following questions of accuracy and highlighted discrepancies by area coroners.
The PA health department decided to include “probable” coronavirus deaths, or an assumed COVID-19-related death without testing for the virus, to their death tolls, dating back days and even weeks ago. But the death toll spike raised questions from coroners who came forward to highlight a discrepancy in death totals, which were not adding up to the number of all-cause deaths.
The scrutiny triggered multiple revisions and statements from the department, including the removal of 200 “probable” COVID-19 deaths and a claim of computer “glitching.”
“Pennsylvania started to include ‘probable deaths’ in its fatalities. As a result, the total number of coronavirus deaths grew by 276, then 360, in successive nights, almost doubling the number of deaths in the state in two days,” a Fox News report explained. ” The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) subsequently removed 200 deaths from its count after facing mounting questions about the accuracy of the count.”
Facts matter. The hospitals received more funding for reporting coronavirus cases & now some of them are having to revise their previous reports.
AUSTIN, TEXAS - APRIL 25: Protestors gather outside the Texas State Capitol during a rally calling for the reopening of Austin and Texas on April 25, 2020 in Austin, Texas. Governor Greg Abbott has said he is consulting with medical professionals to create a plan to safely reopen the state of Texas and is expected to make an announcement in the coming days. (Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images)