There's a rapid, massive increased cost in dealing with COVID-19 patients. From the actual treatments required for these patients to the strain on hospital staffing (including overtime pay), to the additional precautions hospitals have to take with infected patients to avoid infecting others (people who are in the hospital already should REALLY not be getting COVID-19 on top of everything else they have going on), all this results in hospitals spending a ton of money up front that isn't necessary being reimbursed by anyone. Many of those coming to the hospital for treatment have no insurance. Those who do probably aren't seeing their insurance company ready to pony up for all those additional ancillary costs (e.g. your insurance company doesn't care that the ICU nurses are working 30 hours a week of overtime and they aren't going to pay for that). So the risk of not compensating the hospitals for these costs is that hospitals either turn away patients or go our of business.
"Doesn’t that just incentivize hospitals from reporting more?"
Again, there are two things preventing this: 1) the doctors don't want to lose their medical licenses and careers and go to prison for defrauding the government and 2) hospital administrators don't want to go to prison or risk the hospital being shut down just to get a tiny boost in overall revenue. If you're going to knowingly defraud the government, at least have the common sense to do it for a reward that's more than 2%.
"money is exactly why they would “risk” reporting cases where someone died from something other than covid, but tested positive for it."
You can get a bottle of Pepsi for free if you shoplift it. So why don't you? Reward doesn't match the risk and consequences. No doctor is risking their medical license so their boss can report a tiny increase in revenue.
If I remember correctly, there are over 1,000 whistleblowers for 2020 election fraud. Would it not be reasonable to infer there are over 1,000 individuals accused of committing election fraud? Would it not be reasonable to infer there are over 1,000 individuals who are aware of election fraud who did not report it?
Would it not be reasonable to believe it’s possible that some medical professionals committed COVID fraud, for financial or political purposes? Would it not be reasonable to believe that others did not report COVID fraud?