Do you have any idea of the COST to the hospital to care for these patients?
Seems like a fair question for both.
Agreed. It is a fair question.
Given the billing tales from various hospital stays, I can not answer your question except to say that cost and price are two very different things. Having a couple of extended family in hospitals in the last two years, the prices have been extraordinarily high and growing, as best I can judge.
Here are some tales:
"Another COVID Plague: Big Surprise Medical Bills for Survivors" (June 2020)
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200622/big-surprise-medical-bills-for-covid-survivors#1
And: "Americans' COVID Medical Bills Are Set to Rise" (September 2021)
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-09-03/americans-covid-medical-bills-are-set-to-rise
"COVID Hospital Stays Leave Some Survivors With Big Medical Bills" *March 2022)
https://www.drugs.com/news/covid-hospital-leave-some-survivors-big-medical-bills-104294.html
An observation in general -- No large hospitals of which I am aware are bankrupt for their Covid work, but many once-upon-a-time medical professionals have been fired during the last twenty-seven months, some for rejecting the mRNA experimental drugs and some for their activism against them and some for the "mischief" of "disinformaiton." It seems the Covid pandemic has been a curse for many and a boon for the few.
As in: "Meet The 40 New Billionaires Who Got Rich Fighting Covid-19"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/04/06/meet-the-40-new-billionaires-who-got-rich-fighting-covid-19/?sh=46bc91a117e5
It is a fair question. And a very good one. The $39,000 reimbursement sits in a DRG which is how hospitals are paid. It is a lump sum actuarial calculated number that defines the costs of the hospitalization to the institution including nursing, allied health care, admin, supplies, and all other costs associated with a patient. It does not include payments to medical staff which is separately billable and paid to the physician or his or her practice. Thus, the argument that physicians profit from ventilating a patient is just point blank incorrect.
The DRG then calculated a geometric average length of stay for patients who fall into that category. CARES act appropriated a nationwide payment for patients with COVID on mechanical ventilation for greater than 96 hours. The standard DRG payment is calculated by multiplying a standard conversion factor (CF) by the hospital specific unit reimbursement rate. Therefore the payment for two hospitals may be different based on the above formula.
This variation did not occur with COVID ventilated patients because Congress passed a law legislating to this disease specifically. Interestingly the legislation made Medicare rate payments for the uninsured which strangely nationalized a disease.
Because the DRG only calculates the geometric length of stay regardless of the discharge disposition, I suspect that the LOS is skewed by the time in which patients usually died (8-10 days of hospitalization). As such, patients that survived and hs LOS that ran weeks today months was a net loser for the hospital. But remember physicians were paid on a daily basis regardless of LOS which is a dysfunctional system but in this case a perverse check and balance to the financial dilemma of the hospital.
We can argue all day long that the system is bizarrely reimbursed and frankly makes little sense. But since it was designed but the government, is anyone surprised? My guess is COVID was a net zero or possible net loser to most hospitals. I sincerely doubt with few exceptions that hospitals hit the DRG jackpot on COVID. Recalling that the economic engine of hospitals is surgical and procedure based care, the loss of elective surgery and elective procedures probably really hammered a lot of hospital bottom lines. So, taken in its aggregate, Covid is something the hospitals wish they never heard of.
It’s a hell of a way to run a railroad.