Americans owe at least $195 billion of medical debt, despite 90% of the population having some kind of health coverage, according to new research from the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Why it matters: People are spending down their savings and skimping on food, clothing and household items to pay their medical bills, Adriel writes.
About16 million people, or 6% of U.S. adults, owe more than $1,000 in medical bills, and 3 million people owe more than $10,000.
The financial burden falls disproportionately on people with disabilities, those in generally poor health, Black Americans and people living in the South or in non-Medicaid expansion states, per the research.
Go deeper: 16% of privately-insured adults say they would need to take on credit card debt to meet an unexpected $400 medical expense, while 7% would borrow money from friends or family, per the research, which focused on adults who reported having more than $250 in unpaid bills as of December 2019.
It’s not yet clear how much the pandemic and the recession factor into the picture, in part because many people delayed or went without care. There also was a small shift from employer-based coverage to Medicaid, which has little or no cost-sharing.
While the new federal ban on surprise billing limits exposure to some unexpected expenses, it only covers a fraction of the large medical bills many Americans face, the researchers say.
Omicron and staffing constraints pushed hospitals and health systems to once again suspend nonurgent, elective procedures — a move that hurts patients and their care teams.
Physicians told The Washington Post that notifying patients of their surgeries being postponed is one of the most difficult things they do during the pandemic, and the idea of prolonging patients’ suffering is anguishing. In interviews, a patient rated the pain he felt from a ruptured cervical disk — for which his surgery has been indefinitely postponed at Mercy Health-St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima, Ohio — as a 12 out of 10.
In addition to extended pain, pushed back surgeries leave more time for disease advancement. Certain cancers can advance to later stages in four to eight weeks, for instance. Even procedures considered low acuity, such as joint replacements or bariatric cases, will have material implications from delays through reduced activity, mobility and quality of life for patients. Delays in surgery have also been shown to result in higher rates of surgical site infections.
“I’d say it’s a bona fide mess right now,” Kenneth Kaufman, chair and founding partner of Kaufman Hall, told The Washington Post. “We seem to be back to square one. Omicron has significantly compounded staffing shortages in a very profound way.”
Hospitals hit pause on surgeries over the last several weeks as growing COVID-19 inpatient volumes were compounded by omicron sidelining healthcare professionals infected with the virus. Vaccinated healthcare professionals experienced mild breakthrough cases that temporarily took them out of the workforce.
Cleveland Clinic has extended its postponement of elective surgeries four times over the past month as thousands of employees were sidelined from COVID-19 infection. Hospitals in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Washington and Virginia are among those that have either moved back surgeries or complied with government officials’ requests to do so in January.
Healthcare professionals have taken issue with the industry term “elective,” which does not describe the acuity of the medical condition or necessity of the procedure. Rather, the use of “elective” distinguishes these surgeries that are scheduled in advance from emergency surgeries, such as trauma cases.
University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake Citypostponed about 20 percent of its surgeries when at least 500 clinical and nonclinical employees were out sick or isolating from COVID-19 at the start of the month.
“Around Christmastime and the week after Christmas, we didn’t have to reschedule any operations for a period of three weeks, until January 1. Then the wheels came off,” Robert E. Glasgow, MD, interim chair of the hospital’s surgery department, told The Washington Post.
On Jan. 14, the physicians at the hospital learned they could accommodate six additional surgery cases Jan. 18, leaving them in a mad dash to identify priority patients and determine who could present for surgery with less than four days’ notice.
“How can we find six cases that are most in need and are most able to come?” said Dr. Glasgow said.
The incredibly contagious new coronavirus variant is sidelining healthcare workers with breakthrough infections and quarantines, as patients flood into hospitals across the country. While hospitals are reporting that most infected patients are less sick, the sheer number of patients is pushing an already stressed system into crisis.
The Gist: Given mounting evidence that Omicron is both causing less severe disease and evading vaccines, health systems will need tobalance employee COVID testing and quarantine protocols against the constraints caused by mounting numbers of otherwise asymptomatic care workers out sick. As COVID becomes endemic, health systems must find a way to normalize operations even as they manage employee infections. It won’t be sustainable to continually revert to canceling non-emergent procedures (many of which carry clinical consequences to patients if they are delayed) and shifting to crisis standards of care.
While Omicron’s rapid spread is causing COVID hospitalizations to surge once again, the impact on consumer confidence may be different this time around. Drawing on the most recent data from analytics firm Strata Decision Technology, the graphic above shows how hospital volumes have fluctuated throughout the pandemic. Hospital volumes mostly returned to pre-COVID levels early last summer, until the Delta surge caused patients to begin avoiding care across all settings once again.
It remains to be seen if the forty percent of consumers who said they were less likely to seek non-emergency care during the Delta surge feel similarly about the Omicron spike. So far, consumer sentiment seems to be holding steady at last summer’s levels, though we’re still a few weeks away from Omicron’s expected peak.
As the pandemic enters its third year, it’s also likely that consumers who have been delaying care will simply be unwilling or unable to hold off any longer. But even if Omicron doesn’t dissuade consumers from seeking non-COVID care, health systems will be hard pressed to accommodate both COVID and non-COVID care amid worrisome staffing shortages.
Job losses from the COVID-19 pandemic are the highest since the Great Depression. A year and a half later, most Americans who lost their health insurance along with their job remain uninsured.
Most Americans who lost their jobs and health insurance more than a year ago remain uninsured.
Over 1,200 Americans who are still unemployed due to COVID-19 were surveyed by AffordableHealthInsurance.com. At least four out of five in all participants don’t have insurance coverage.
To be exact, 56% of Americans who remain unemployed since being laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic lost their health insurance along with their job. In addition, 23% of workers did not have employer-provided health insurance prior to losing their jobs.
Even before the pandemic, small businesses struggled to absorb the cost of providing health insurance to their employees, said health insurance advisor and nursing consultant Tammy Burns in the Affordable Health Insurance study.
“Companies have cut costs by going with high-deductible plans and sharing less of the cost towards the insurance,” Burns said. “This makes it cheaper for employees to get their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace. At larger companies, health care costs are growing faster than worker wages, so a large amount of an employee’s check goes to insurance. Therefore, many workers opt out because they can’t afford it.”
Majority of Those Who Lost Health Insurance Still Lack Coverage
Of the 56% of unemployed Americans who lost their health insurance along with their job, 81% are still uninsured.
This lack of coverage is impacting certain groups more than others. There are also several contributing factors to why the number of unemployed Americans without health insurance remains high.
These factors are:
Men more likely to remain uninsured than women
When broken down by gender, men are more likely than women to have lost their health insurance when they lost their jobs at 66% and 44%, respectively. However, women are twice as likely as men to have not had health insurance in the first place at 31% and 16%, respectively.
Currently, men are slightly more likely to still be uninsured. Eighty-four percent of male survey respondents do not currently have health insurance, compared to 75% of women.
Majority of unemployed Millennials, Gen Xers still uninsured
Our survey also found that certain age groups are more likely than others to still be uninsured after a pandemic-related job loss.
Eighty-six percent of individuals ages 35 to 44, and 84% of both 25 to 34 year-olds and 45 to 54 year-olds remain without health insurance after being laid off. Comparatively, 67% of unemployed individuals 18 to 24, and 58% of those older than 55 are still uninsured.
Americans ages 25 to 44 are also the age group most likely to have lost their health insurance when they were let go from their jobs (66%).
Inability to Afford Private Insurance The Top Reason to Remain Uninsured
The high cost of individual insurance is the number one reason Americans still unemployed from the pandemic remain uninsured.
Sixty-seven percent of those uninsured can’t afford private health insurance. Eleven percent of people who still lack health insurance say they did not qualify for government-funded health insurance, despite the fact that a number of states expanded access to Medicaid during the pandemic.
A lack of understanding about how the ACA marketplace works may also play a role in why uninsured Americans are not pursuing all possible avenues to get health insurance.
“People are scared of the ACA because it involves a lot of personal information, like taxes,” Burns said. “I have found that many people are afraid it is ‘the government being in my business.’ There is a lack of knowledge about how helpful and affordable the ACA is now. There needs to be better education about this program.”
One in five uninsured Americans choose not to have health insurance
The survey also found 20% of unemployed Americans who are uninsured choose to forgo health insurance altogether.
This is particularly true for men, 22% of whom are choosing not to have health insurance, compared to 15% of women.
Younger adults are also more likely than older Americans to opt out of health insurance if they are unemployed. Twenty-five percent of 25 to 34 year-olds, and 20% of 25 to 34 year-olds choose not to have health insurance.
Medication, Routine Checkups Skipped Due to Lack of Insurance
A lack of insurance has serious short- and long-term implications for individuals’ health and well-being. The biggest impact: 58% of uninsured individuals are no longer getting routine care, which could hinder their ability to identify more serious underlying issues.
Other impacts include no longer taking doctor-prescribed medication (56%); delaying planned medical procedures (46%); not seeking treatment for chronic issues (44%), and no longer receiving mental health treatment (41%).
Three-quarters of older Americans not getting regular check-ups
Our survey also found that those at greater risk for medical issues, based on age, are the most likely to be skipping their routine check-ups. Three-fourths of uninsured individuals over the age of 55 (76%) say they are not going for regular doctor visits because of their lack of insurance, the highest percentage of any age group.
Meanwhile, 64% of individuals 35 to 44 are not taking doctor-prescribed medication, which can have both short- and long-term negative effects.
Majority of Uninsured Americans “Very likely” to be Financially Devastated by Medical Emergency
Given that so many individuals are already hard-pressed to afford health insurance, it’s not surprising that many of them will also be in a dangerous place financially if there is a medical emergency.
Fifty-nine percent of uninsured people are “very likely” to be financially devastated by a medical emergency, while another quarter are “somewhat likely” to face financial ruin in the event of a medical emergency.
The stress, disruption, isolation, and lives lost during the pandemic have exacerbated longstanding challenges in access to mental healthcare. In the graphic above, we highlight how COVID has impacted the state of mental health across generations.
Younger Americans are faring much worse. This week, the nation’s leading pediatric professional societies declared a national mental health emergency for children and adolescents, and nearly half of “Generation Z” reports that their mental health has worsened during COVID.
Mental health-related emergency department (ED) visits increased in 2020 across all age groups, with the steepest rise among adolescents. Because of a national shortage of inpatient psychiatric beds, patients with mental health needs are increasingly being “boarded” in the ED—even asnearly two-thirds of EDs lack psychiatric services to adequately manage patients in crisis.
Case in point: research on behavioral health access in Massachusetts shows one in every four ED beds is now occupied by a patient awaiting psychiatric evaluation. ED boarding of patients in mental health crisis not only delays necessary care, but leads to throughput backups in hospitals, and increases caregiver stress and burnout.
Access to inpatient treatment is most challenged for children and adolescents, as well as “med-psych” patients, who also have significant physical health needs that must be managed. New solutions have emerged during the pandemic: burgeoning telemedicine platforms don’t just increase access to outpatient therapy, they also enable psychiatrists to evaluate emergency patients virtually.
In the long term, a three-part approach is needed—new virtual solutions, expanded inpatient capacity, and greater community resources to address the social needs that often accompany a behavioral health diagnosis.
Cost-sharing is the practice of making individuals responsible for part of their health insurance costs beyond the monthly premiums they pay for health insurance – think things like deductibles and copayments. The practice is meant to inspire more thoughtful choices among consumers when it comes to healthcare decisions. However, the choices it inspires can often be more harmful than good.
The delta variant of the coronavirus continues to pile on staffing challenges for hospitals as they spend more resources on recruiting and retaining employees, jack up benefit options and offer steep sign-on bonuses, according to a Tuesday report from Moody’s Investors Service.
Those expenses will strain hospital profitability at a time when lucrative non-emergency procedures are on hold in some areas to handle incoming COVID-19 inpatients. Moody’s expects the weight on hospital budgets to continue through next year.
Although demand for temporary nursing staff dipped last week, it is still well beyond pre-pandemic levels, according to data gathered by Jefferies analysts. Crisis jobs — those that are rapid response or bill more than $100 an hour — represent more than three quarters of staffing firm Aya Healthcare’s openings, the third highest percentage Jefferies has recorded.
Dive Insight:
The highly contagious delta variant is wreaking havoc on the U.S. healthcare system as mostly unvaccinated people are filling ICUs more than a year and half into the pandemic. Clinicians who have throughout that time been stressed working long and difficult hours are reporting intense burnout as some mull leaving the profession altogether.
Meanwhile, vaccine mandates have gone into effect for many hospitals. Although they report that the vast majority of employees are complying, even the small losses of those who refuse can take a hit to staffing resources. This need has driven increases to the salaries nurses can command, as well as to benefit packages, sign-on bonuses and the offer of services like child care, Moody’s said.
The report also noted that the current shortage — unlike previous ones — also includes nonclinical staff such as dietary and environmental services workers.
While Moody’s focuses on nonprofit operators, expense challenges will be an important metric to watch during the upcoming earnings season. Although all major for-profit hospital operators beat Wall Street expectations on earnings and revenue in Q2 and most posted profit increases, expenses were a rising line item.
Hospital labor expenses rise
For-profit health systems’ labor costs year over yearhttps://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/G7DCw/2/
And consultancy Kaufman Hall has warned U.S. hospitals will lose about $54 billion in net income this year, while an earlier Moody’s report predicted impacts to the country’s health system from COVID-19 will last for decades.
As the Biden administration works to encourage more vaccinations through a combination of carrots and sticks, it remains unclear when delta may peak and what future variants could bring. Even after hospitals are on more stable ground in terms of capacity, further challenges will remain as patients return for care they deferred earlier.
And there are more long-term concerns as well. “Even after the pandemic, competition for labor is likely to continue as the population ages — a key social risk — and demand for services increases,” according to the Moody’s report.
Jefferies analysts agreed, saying the demand for temp nurses will go down but remain elevated. “Additionally, the fundamental demand drivers for nurses that existed even before COVID (i.e., nurse population demographics) have been boosted by the lingering effects of the pandemic on the profession and are likely to boost demand for temp staffing post-2022,” they wrote in the Wednesday note.
n addition to treating an influx of Covid-19 patients, many hospitals are struggling with what one administrator calls a “triple whammy” of financial burdens—stemming from plummeting revenue, higher labor costs, and reduced relief funds, Christopher Rowland reports for the Washington Post.
Hospitals in less-vaccinated areas face spiking labor costs
In areas with low vaccination rates, particularly in southern and rural communities, hospitals have been overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients, exacerbating labor shortages as workers burn out or leave for more lucrative positions, Rowland reports.
“The workforce issue is just dire,” Stacey Hughes, EVP of government relations and policy for the American Hospital Association (AHA), said. “The delta variant has wreaked significant havoc on hospitals and health systems.”
In Louisiana, Mary Ellen Pratt, CEO of St. James Parish Hospital, said many nurses quit due to the grueling conditions as Covid-19 cases spiked. “I didn’t have any extra money to incentivize my staff to pick up additional shifts,” she said. “This is coming out of bottom-line money I don’t have.”
Separately, Lisa Smithgall, SVP and chief nursing executive at Ballad Health, said the health system—which has 21 hospitals in eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia—has faced similar problems retaining staff amid Covid-19 surges.
“We knew we were at risk in our region because of where we live and because of our vaccination rate being so poor,” Smithgall said. “At one point, we were seeing four or five nurse resignations per week. They couldn’t do it again; they emotionally didn’t have it. They were so upset with our community.”
To fill in these growing gaps in their workforce, many hospitals have had to turn to costly contract workers, Rowland reports—a significant financial burden that further strains hospitals’ resources.
For example, Ballad Health went from hiring fewer than 75 contract nurses before the pandemic to 150 in August 2020 and 450 in August 2021. Moreover, according to Smithgall, contract nurses previously made double or triple what permanent staff nurses made, but now Ballad sometimes has to pay up to seven times as much for contract nurses as hospitals compete for workers to fill shifts.
Many hospitals, including those in areas with high vaccination rates, have delayed elective surgeries, a crucial source of revenue, amid nationwide surges in Covid-19 cases, Rowland reports—further compounding financial struggles for many organizations.
On Aug. 26, Ballad Health postponed a long list of elective surgeries—including hernia repair, cardiac and interventional radiology procedures, joint replacements, and nonessential spine surgery—to preserve space in its hospitals and conserve workers. Ballad is now allowing elective surgeries again, but only for a limited number of procedures that do not require overnight stays.
Similarly, St. Charles Health System in Oregon postponed elective surgeries in August “while we responded to a surge that was significantly greater and much more sudden than the surge in 2020,” Matt Swafford, the health system’s VP and CFO, said.
According to Swafford, the health system lost $5 million a week through August and September, around $1 million of which was repayment of emergency advances on Medicare reimbursements from last year.
“I don’t think anybody saw this level of surge coming in 2021 after what we saw in 2020,” he said. “We’re just not equipped to be able to simultaneously respond to the urgent needs of the community [for more typical surgeries and care] at the same time that a third of our beds are occupied by highly infective Covid patients.”
Many hospitals likely to end the year at a deficit
Further compounding the issue, according to Moody’s Investors Service, is that the provider relief funds that previously made up 43% of operating cash flow at nonprofit and government-run hospitals in the United States are now dwindling down.
In addition, the latest portion of provider relief funds to be distributed must be based on expenses incurred by hospitals before March 31, 2021, which don’t account for months of the delta surge, Rowland reports.
Premier, a group purchasing and technology company serving more than 4,000 hospitals and health systems, analyzed payroll data of 650 hospitals and found that U.S. hospitals have spent a total of $24 billion a year during the pandemic to cover excess labor costs, primarily for overtime and contract nurses. This was an increase of 63% from October 2019 to July 2021, Rowland reports, with hospitals in the Upper Midwest and across the South seeing the largest increases.
“It’s going to leave them huge deficits that they are going to have to work out of for years to come,” Michael Alkire, Premier’s CEO, said.
HENRY KOTULA 