Posted on 04/27/2020 1:57:50 PM PDT by Zenyatta
U.S. hospitals receive more funds if patients are coded for coronavirus even if those patients haven’t been tested for the virus, fact-checkers at USA Today, Politifact, and Snopes have confirmed.
A hospital that admits a likely coronavirus patient can get up to $13,000 in aid and three times as much if that patient is placed on a ventilator, according to Minnesota state senator and physician Scott Jensen.
(Excerpt) Read more at lacortenews.com ...
I was going to post the article to Facebook from the site the article appears, and it kicked back and said information was deemed abusive and could not be shared on FB.
Lots of stuff censored !!!
Whenever the government is out there shoveling money at a “problem” there will be a long line of people fighting to get some of it, even if it means lying and cheating.
The stats have been padded from day one this PISSES ME OFF beyond belief, I think we need to look at the stats for FL. and Texas then judge how truthful rather stats really are NY of course would be different HOWEVER I firmly believe they are bloated!! I would love to see the stats from NY on deaths from OTHER than CV19!!!
Follow the Money!
Just took a screenshot and posted as an image. Will see how long it stays up !
People are acting like this is somehow new. Different payments based on diagnosis is a massive part of the medical industry.
There is a “medical billing” industry based on trying to extract as much money as possible from whoever is paying.
Wonder why Governor Cuomo banned hydroxichlorquine on the street. You could only get it of you are admitted to the hospital 39000 per patient billed to the feds
Just rcvd my second invoice for lab @ QUEST.
1st one went direct to secondary 783.00 vs Medicare,they screwed up
Told them Mediscare was primary
2nd one to Mediscare was 801.00
I asked why she said different contractors.
As in we shove it up the Feds Butt
It might also be a semi-unintended consequence of “assuring covid patients don’t get onerous bills”.
I would like to see the other death stats also. In addition I would like to see the COVID19 stats stated as:
Positives=
Hospitalized=
Deaths=
It’s hospital Admins ...
Virus was a horrible event and people died and god rest their souls them but I stand firm that this thing was a scam from the beginning with the virus splitting in two. One was the actual health crisis and the other was the political virus.
There was a new ICD 10 code designated EXPLICITLY for the Wuhan Flu. U70.1 was supposed to go into effect in October, but they moved it up to April 1st (right about the time we started seeing dollars moved to Wuhan Flu patients). Compare/Contrast with the code J09.X (”Influenza due to identified novel influenza A virus”) which is an “umbrella” code for Swine Flu, Bird Flu, H5N1, and others.
WHO designated U70.1 for the specific use for Wuhan Flu. Here’s their announcement: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/icd/Announcement-New-ICD-code-for-coronavirus-3-18-2020.pdf
You are correct; billing out per code has been going on forever; I don’t remember a code being issued for billing on a very specific Dx like this before.
You and I are on the exact same page shanover, I have firmly believed from day one that this has been the biggest farce ever hoisted n the American people I am very saddened it was this easy for the media to do this, what really breaks my heart are how many people on this site jumped right on the hysteria bandwagon AND lapped up every damn word the media spoon fed them!! The media are all high fiving each other for a job well done!! SICKENS ME!!
For every death from the Virus the hospitals gets $35k vs $19k for non-virus cases! Shades of ENRON but being done over dead bodies!!
The CDC source link says the new code is U07.1 (COVID-19). If you use U70.1, you would get an error message for invalid code.
Yes, for the CDC sanctions listing Covid as the causes of death even for those not tested, but presumed as being likely. However, as for the $, if we are going to invoke Snopes as verifying Jensen's claims, then you need to read what they state
A spokesperson for CMS told us that whether hospitals are paid by Medicare for care of a COVID-19 patient would depend on whether that patient was covered by Medicare insurance. CMS also told us there is no set or predetermined amount paid to hospitals for diagnosing and treating COVID-19 patients, and the amounts would depend on a variety of factors driven by the needs of each patient. Pay-outs would also depend on the variance of the costs of medical care in different regions.
The closest match for the numbers cited by Jensen we could locate was in an April 7, 2020, article published by the health care nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. As a starting point to estimate how much hospitals might get paid by the federal government for treating uninsured COVID-19 patients, the article used average payments for hospital admissions for similar conditions in 2017:
For less severe hospitalizations, we use the average Medicare payment for respiratory infections and inflammations with major comorbidities or complications in 2017, which was $13,297. For more severe hospitalizations, we use the average Medicare payment for a respiratory system diagnosis with ventilator support for greater than 96 hours, which was $40,218 .
We therefore rate this claim “Mixture.” While it seems plausible that Medicare disbursements to hospitals treating COVID-19 patients could be in the range given by Jensen in the Fox News interview (if those patients are covered by Medicare), we found no evidence to support Jensen’s assertion that “Medicare has determined” that hospitals will be paid $13,000 for patients with COVID-19 diagnoses or $39,000 for COVID-19 patients place on ventilators.
Politico does a better job:
It’s standard for Medicare to pay a hospital roughly three times as much for a patient who goes on a ventilator, as for one who doesn’t.
Medicare is paying a 20% add-on to its regular hospital payments for the treatment of COVID-19 victims. That’s a result of a federal stimulus law.
The claim’s suggestion is that the number of COVID-19 cases is being padded; but evidence indicates the cases are being undercounted.
For a statement that is partially accurate, our rating is Half True.
And USA today is more confirmatory, stating, ,
He noted that some states, including his home state of Minnesota, as well as California, list only laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses. Others, specifically New York, list all presumed cases, which is allowed under guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of mid-April and which will result in a larger payout. Jensen said he thinks the overall number of COVID-19 cases have been undercounted based on limitations in the number of tests available...
Ask FactCheck weighed in April 21: "The figures cited by Jensen generally square with estimated Medicare payments for COVID-19 hospitalizations, based on average Medicare payments for patients with similar diagnoses."
Ask FactCheck reporter Angelo Fichera, who interviewed Jensen, noted, "Jensen said he did not think that hospitals were intentionally misclassifying cases for financial reasons. But that’s how his comments have been widely interpreted and paraded on social media."
Ask FactCheck's conclusion: "Recent legislation pays hospitals higher Medicare rates for COVID-19 patients and treatment, but there is no evidence of fraudulent reporting."
Our ruling: True We rate the claim that hospitals get paid more if patients are listed as COVID-19 and on ventilators as TRUE. 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.
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