How much money are ICUs getting these days for Covid “patients”?
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. Each of these average payments was then increased by 20% to account for the add-on to Medicare inpatient reimbursement for patients with COVID-19 that was included in the CARES Act.1
Before accounting for the 20% add on, Medicare payments are about half of what private insurers pay on average for the same diagnoses. In the absence of this new proposed policy, many of the uninsured would typically be billed based on hospital charges, which are the undiscounted “list prices” for care and are typically much higher than even private insurance reimbursement.
Based on the above, we estimate total payments to hospitals for treating uninsured patients under the Trump administration policy would range from $13.9 billion to $41.8 billion. At the top end of the range, payments on behalf of the uninsured would consume more than 40% of the $100 billion fund
On the same line, how much money was pushed to health care providers to build capacity over the past 18 months? How many more beds could have been available if those big hospitals offered big bonuses for CNAs, LPNs, and people off the streets to train up as RNs?
I call BS.
Probably the same for any other ICU patient. If the ICU is full then it's full.