Category Archives: Economic Crisis

Cartoon – The Four Stages of Denial

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Cartoon, Clinical Testing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Denial, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Emergency Preparedness, False Hope, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Wishful Thinking • Leave a comment

The Four Stages of Denial CARTOON | Etsy

100,000 Lives Lost to COVID-19. What Did They Teach Us?

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Emergency Preparedness, First Responders, Front Lines, Health Policy, Healthcare Providers, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Nurses, Nursing Home, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Physician, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Safety Net Hospitals, Safety-Net Providers, Scientists, Sick Leave, Social Determinants of Health, Social Distancing, Supply Chain, Vulnerable Populations • Leave a comment

https://www.propublica.org/article/100000-lives-lost-to-covid-19-what-did-they-teach-us?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=feature

May 27 data: Four new Utah COVID-19 deaths as US count tops ...

Each person who has died of COVID-19 was somebody’s everything. Even as we mourn for those we knew, cry for those we loved and consider those who have died uncounted, the full tragedy of the pandemic hinges on one question: How do we stop the next 100,000?

The United States has now recorded 100,000 deaths due to the coronavirus.

It’s a moment to collectively grieve and reflect.

Even as we mourn for those we knew, cry for those we loved and consider also those who have died uncounted, I hope that we can also resolve to learn more, test better, hold our leaders accountable and better protect our citizens so we do not have to reach another grim milestone.

Through public records requests and other reporting, ProPublica has found example after example of delays, mistakes and missed opportunities. The CDC took weeks to fix its faulty test. In Seattle, 33,000 fans attended a soccer match, even after the top local health official said he wanted to end mass gatherings. Houston went ahead with a livestock show and rodeo that typically draws 2.5 million people, until evidence of community spread shut it down after eight days. Nebraska kept a meatpacking plant open that health officials wanted to shut down, and cases from the plant subsequently skyrocketed. And in New York, the epicenter of the pandemic, political infighting between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio hampered communication and slowed decision making at a time when speed was critical to stop the virus’ exponential spread.

COVID-19 has also laid bare many long-standing inequities and failings in America’s health care system. It is devastating, but not surprising, to learn that many of those who have been most harmed by the virus are also Americans who have long suffered from historical social injustices that left them particularly susceptible to the disease.

This massive loss of life wasn’t inevitable. It wasn’t simply unfortunate and regrettable. Even without a vaccine or cure, better mitigation measures could have prevented infections from happening in the first place; more testing capacity could have allowed patients to be identified and treated earlier.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, far from it.

At this moment, the questions we need to ask are: How do we prevent the next 100,000 deaths from happening? How do we better protect our most vulnerable in the coming months? Even while we mourn, how can we take action, so we do not repeat this horror all over again?

Here’s what we’ve learned so far.

Though we’ve long known about infection control problems in nursing homes, COVID-19 got in and ran roughshod.

From the first weeks of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, when the virus tore through the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, nursing homes and long-term care facilities have emerged as one of the deadliest settings. As of May 21, there have been around 35,000 deaths of staff and residents in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.

Yet the facilities have continued to struggle with basic infection control. Federal inspectors have found homes with insufficient staff and a lack of personal protective equipment. Others have failed to maintain social distancing among residents, according to inspection reports ProPublica reviewed. Desperate family members have had to become detectives and activists, one even going as far as staging a midnight rescue of her loved one as the virus spread through a Queens, New York, assisted living facility.

What now? The risk to the elderly will not decrease as time goes by — more than any other population, they will need the highest levels of protection until the pandemic is over. The CEO of the industry’s trade group told my colleague Charles Ornstein: “Just like hospitals, we have called for help. In our case, nobody has listened.” More can be done to protect our nursing home and long term care population. This means regular testing of both staff and residents, adequate protective gear and a realistic way to isolate residents who test positive.

Racial disparities in health care are pervasive in medicine, as they have been in COVID-19 deaths.

African Americans have contracted and died of the coronavirus at higher rates across the country. This is due to myriad factors, including more limited access to medical care as well as environmental, economic and political factors that put them at higher risk of chronic conditions. When ProPublica examined the first 100 recorded victims of the coronavirus in Chicago, we found that 70 were black. African Americans make up 30% of the city’s population.

What now? States should make sure that safety-net hospitals, which serve a large portion of low-income and uninsured patients regardless of their ability to pay, and hospitals in neighborhoods that serve predominantly black communities, are well-supplied and sufficiently staffed during the crisis. More can also be done to encourage African American patients to not delay seeking care, even when they have “innocent symptoms” like a cough or low-grade fever, especially when they suffer other health conditions like diabetes.

Racial disparities go beyond medicine, to other aspects of the pandemic. Data shows that black people are already being disproportionately arrested for social distancing violations, a measure that can undercut public health efforts and further raise the risk of infection, especially when enforcement includes time in a crowded jail.

Essential workers had little choice but to work during COVID-19, but adequate safeguards weren’t put in place to protect them.

We’ve known from the beginning there are some measures that help protect us from the virus, such as physical distancing. Yet millions of Americans haven’t been able to heed that advice, and have had no choice but to risk their health daily as they’ve gone to work shoulder-to-shoulder in meat-packing plants, rung up groceries while being forbidden to wear gloves, or delivered the mail. Those who are undocumented live with the additional fear of being caught by immigration authorities if they go to a hospital for testing or treatment.

What now? Research has shown that there’s a much higher risk of transmission in enclosed spaces than outdoors, so providing good ventilation, adequate physical distancing, and protective gear as appropriate for workers in indoor spaces is critical for safety. We also now know that patients are likely most infectious right before or at the time when symptoms start appearing, so if workplaces are generous about their sick leave policies, workers can err on the side of caution if they do feel unwell, and not have to choose between their livelihoods and their health. It’s also important to have adequate testing capacity, so infections can be caught before they turn into a large outbreak.

Frontline health care workers were not given adequate PPE and were sometimes fired for speaking up about it.

While health workers have not, thankfully, been dying at conspicuously higher rates, they continue to be susceptible to the virus due to their work. The national scramble for ventilators and personal protective equipment has exposed the just-in-time nature of hospitals’ inventories: Nurses across the country have had to work with expired N95 masks, or no masks at all. Health workers have been suspended, or put on unpaid leave, because they didn’t see eye to eye with their administrators on the amount of protective gear they needed to keep themselves safe while caring for patients.

First responders — EMTs, firefighters and paramedics — are often forgotten when it comes to funding, even though they are the first point of contact with sick patients. The lack of a coherent system nationwide meant that some first responders felt prepared, while others were begging for masks at local hospitals.

What now? As states reopen, it will be important to closely track hospital capacity, and if cases rise and threaten their medical systems’ ability to care for patients, governments will need to be ready to pause or even dial back reopening measures. It should go without saying that adequate protective gear is a must. I also hope that hospital administrators are thinking about mental health care for their staffs. Doctors and nurses have told us of the immense strain of caring for patients whom they don’t know how to save, while also worrying about getting sick themselves, or carrying the virus home to their loved ones. Even “heroes” need supplies and support.

What we still have to learn:

There continue to be questions on which data is lacking, such as the effects of the coronavirus on pregnant women. Without evidence-based research, pregnant women have been left to make decisions on their own, sometimes trying to limit their exposure against their employer’s wishes.

Similarly, there’s a paucity of data on children’s risk level and their role in transmission. While we can confidently say that it’s rare for children to get very ill if they do get infected, there’s not as much information on whether children are as infectious as adults. Answering that question would not just help parents make decisions (Can I let my kid go to day care when we live with Grandma?) but also help officials make evidence-based decisions on how and when to reopen schools.

There’s some research I don’t want to rush. Experts say the bar for evidence should be extremely high when it comes to a vaccine’s safety and benefit. It makes sense that we might be willing to use a therapeutic with less evidence on critically ill patients, knowing that without any intervention, they would soon die. A vaccine, however, is intended to be given to vast numbers of healthy people. So yes, we have to move urgently, but we must still take the time to gather robust data.

Our nation’s leaders have many choices to make in the coming weeks and months. I hope they will heed the advice of scientists, doctors and public health officials, and prioritize the protection of everyone from essential workers to people in prisons and homeless shelters who does not have the privilege of staying home for the duration of the pandemic.

The coronavirus is a wily adversary. We may ultimately defeat it with a vaccine or effective therapeutics. But what we’ve learned from the first 100,000 deaths is that we can save lives with the oldest mitigation tactics in the public health arsenal — and that being slow to act comes with a terrible cost.

I refuse to succumb to fatalism, to just accepting the ever higher death toll as inevitable. I want us to make it harder for this virus to take each precious life from us. And I believe we can.

 

 

 

Ascension reports $2.7B net loss in Q3

Posted on by • Posted in Cash, Cash Reserves, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Employee Benefits, Employee Furlough, Employee Hiring Freeze, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medicare Advance Payments, Net Income, Nonoperating Income, Operating Expenses, Operating Income, Operating Margin, Operating Performance, Operating Revenue, Pandemic, Rev Cycle Management, Revenue Cycle, The CARES Act • Leave a comment

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/ascension-reports-2-7b-net-loss-in-q3.html?utm_medium=email

Ascension, Google working on 'secret' patient data project, says ...

St. Louis.-based Ascension saw revenue decline in the three months ended March 31, and it ended the period with a net loss, according to unaudited financial documents. 

The 150-hospital system reported operating revenue of $6.1 billion in the third quarter of fiscal year 2020, down 2.5 percent from the same period a year earlier. Net patient service revenue dramatically declined in March due to a drop in patient volume attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID-19 has been encountered across all Ascension markets, to varying degrees, and has had an adverse effect on the system’s revenues and operating margin,” management wrote in comments on the financial results.

Looking at the nine months ended March 31, net patient service revenue was up 1.9 percent year over year due to several factors, including an increase in physician office visits and expansion of service lines and sites of care. 

The health system’s expenses climbed more than 3 percent year over year to $6.4 billion in the third quarter, and expenses were up nearly 4 percent in the nine months ended March 31. Higher expenses related to expanded service lines and the transition toward standardized revenue cycle services pushed the system’s expenses higher before the COVID-19 pandemic, Ascension said. 

Ascension ended the most recent quarter with an operating loss of $429.4 million, compared to operating income of $80.1 million a year earlier. During the nine months ended March 31, the health system’s operating loss totaled $344.9 million.

After factoring in nonoperating items, including losses from investments of nearly $2.5 billion, Ascension reported a net loss of $2.7 billion in the third quarter of fiscal year 2020. In the same period a year earlier, the system recorded investment income of $1.1 billion and net income of $1.2 billion.

To help offset financial damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ascension received funds from the $175 billion in relief aid Congress has allocated to hospitals and other healthcare providers to cover expenses and lost revenue tied to the pandemic. The health system received $211 million in federal grants, according to The New York Times.

Ascension also applied for and received about $2 billion of Medicare advance payments in April, which must be repaid. 

 

 

 

 

Baylor Scott & White to lay off 1,200 workers, furlough others

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/baylor-scott-white-to-lay-off-1-200-workers-furlough-others.html?utm_medium=email

How Baylor Scott & White's quality alliance led Texas in Medicare ...

Baylor Scott & White Health, a nonprofit health system based in Dallas, is laying off about 1,200 employees, nearly 3 percent of its workforce, according to The Dallas Morning News. 

Like other health systems across the nation, Baylor Scott & White is facing financial damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The health system spent $85 million to prepare and respond to the pandemic, and it also saw a significant drop in patient volumes.

“We experienced a dramatic drop in patient volumes — between 50 and 90 percent, depending upon where they sought care,” CEO Jim Hinton told employees in a video message, according to The Dallas Morning News. 

Those affected by the layoffs will be told this week and paid through June 7, a spokesperson told The Dallas Morning News.

In addition to the layoffs, Baylor Scott & White is furloughing an unspecified number of employees, leaving some open positions unfilled and cutting the pay of about 300 senior leaders, according to the report. 

Baylor Scott & White has received about $172 million in federal grants from the $175 billion in relief aid Congress has allocated to hospitals and other healthcare providers to cover expenses or lost revenues tied to the COVID-19 pandemic. The health system also received about $660 million in Medicare advance payments, which must be repaid, according to the report.

Baylor Scott & White is one of more than 260 hospitals and health systems across the nation to furlough or lay off employees in recent months. 

 

 

 

Providence, 1st to treat COVID-19 patient, posts $1.1B loss

Posted on by • Posted in Coronavirus, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Elective Procedures, Elective Surgery, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Net Income, Nonoperating Income, Operating Expenses, Operating Income, Operating Margin, Operating Performance, Operating Revenue, Telemedicine • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/providence-1st-to-treat-covid-19-patient-posts-11b-loss/578585/

Dr. Ryan Keay: Medicaid Plays a Crucial Role in Alleviating the ...

Dive Brief:

  • Providence posted a net loss of $1.1 billion and operating loss of $276 million for the first quarter of 2020, drastically down from a net gain of $543 million and operating loss of $4 million in the first quarter of 2019 as the COVID-19 pandemic has slashed financial operations for providers across the country.
  • The Catholic nonprofit system saw investment losses of $763 million as stock market volatility followed stay-at-home orders in March and April for much of the United States. That compared to a $582 million investment gain in the prior-year period.
  • Patient volumes dropped as Providence suspended non-emergency procedures amid the pandemic. Surgeries declined 8%, total outpatient visits dropped 3% and acute patient days were down 5%, according to a financial report filed late last week.

Dive Insight:

Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington, was the first to knowingly treat a COVID-19 patient in the United States — on Jan. 20. Since then, cases have plateaued, with the rate becoming “more manageable” throughout the communities Providence serves.

The system suspended elective procedures the week of March 16 and saw telehealth appointments skyrocket from an average of 50 visits per day to more than 12,000. “Now, the critical path forward is reopening services safely so that we can get back to patients who have delayed their care,” Providence CFO Venkat Bhamidipati said in a statement.

Providence reported receiving $509 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and $1.6 billion in accelerated Medicare payments. The system tapped $800 million in private credit lines as well. As of the end of the first quarter, Providence had 182 days cash on hand, down slightly from the prior-year period.

The hospital operator is far from alone in reporting steep first-quarter losses, and ratings agencies predict the second quarter will not be kind to nonprofits either.

So far, the system has not imposed layoffs but has cut overtime and seen voluntary furloughs and executive pay cuts. “If patient census and revenue does not return to anticipated levels, we would also consider involuntary options,” according to the filing.

Providence’s operating EBIDTA margin was down to 0.9% in the first quarter of this year from 5.5% in the first quarter of 2019.

Operating expenses increased 10% to $6.6 billion, driven by increases in labor costs and supplies. The system noted paying “significantly higher” premiums to obtain personal protective equipment and increased costs for ICU medications amid the pandemic.

The filing discloses a complaint under the California Corporations Code from earlier this month. It was filed by two of the three corporate members of Hoag Hospital, seeking to dissolve the third member and remove Hoag as an obligated group member. Providence states it “believes that the complaint is without merit, and believes the legal process will vindicate this position.”

The 51-hospital system created by the 2016 merger of Washington-based Providence and California-based St. Joseph is coming off a 2019 surplus of $1.36 billion, swinging to the black from 2018’s deficit of $445 million.

 

 

 

 

Why We Should Be Reading Albert Camus During the Pandemic

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Blame, Clinical Testing, Conspiracy Theories, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Denial, Economic Crisis, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership, Mortality, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Social Distancing, Vaccination, Vaccine • Leave a comment

https://www.governing.com/context/Why-We-Should-Be-Reading-Albert-Camus-During-the-Pandemic.html?utm_term=READ%20MORE&utm_campaign=Why%20We%20Should%20Be%20Reading%20Albert%20Camus%20During%20a%20Pandemic&utm_content=email&utm_source=Act-On+Software&utm_medium=email

Looking at Albert Camus's “The Plague” - The New York Times

The author’s masterpiece, The Plague, will make you think, ask all sorts of Socratic questions of yourself and form resolutions about how you intend to measure your life after getting through this global catastrophe.

It’s amazing how many pandemic books there are, and how thoroughly the idea of a global pandemic had crept into our popular culture well before the current situation. My daughter and I watched the Tom Hanks movie Inferno over the weekend, mostly because we wanted to gaze at the city of Florence. It’s not a great movie, but it is visually stunning in several ways. The plot is not something I gave much attention to when I first saw the film a couple of years ago: a rich Ted-talking eccentric decides to kill off most of the people of the world to save the Earth from over-population and the ravages 16 billion people would mean for other species and the health of the biosphere.

When I first saw the film in 2016, I regarded the plotline (will the vial of lethal germs be released or not?) as nothing but the usual “James Bond” setup for whatever else happened in the film. This time I watched it with greater alertness.

The fact is, of course, that COVID-19 is a serious global nuisance that has disrupted the lives of all Americans in a way that almost nobody could have predicted (well, there is Bill Gates, of course), but it is not the Black Plague, which swept away somewhere between one-fourth and one-half of all Europeans between 1348-1352, or the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia, which killed one in 10 inhabitants of America’s largest city in 1793, or the Spanish Flu, which killed somewhere between 57 and 100 million people worldwide in 1918.

If the coronavirus eventually kills 5 million people worldwide, and a couple of hundred thousand Americans before the vaccines gallop in to save the day a year or 18 months hence, it will have been a comparatively minor event in the history of global pandemics. The moment when it appeared that the hospital and medical infrastructure of New York might collapse has now passed. And though the death toll continues to climb towards perhaps 150,000 American dead by Aug. 1, 2020, the national dread that created a sustained will-we-survive and how-will-we-cope conversation in virtually every household in the United States is mostly over. The question now is when and how (and if) the country can return to what the late John McCain called regular order.

In the past two months I have read more than a dozen pandemic books, from Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1721), to Stephen King’s endless The Stand (1978). They are all interesting. If you outline the takeaway insights from these books, written over the span of many hundreds of years, they all make essentially the same points:

  1. Every government starts in denial, moves through some form of coverup, and eventually has to come to terms with the facts on the ground. 
  2. The rich flee to their country estates (or the Hamptons) and whine about all the inconvenience.
  3. The poor (as always) do most of the suffering, not merely because they are poor and have less access to the Maslovian necessities of life, but because they wind up putting themselves into harm’s way to help other people and even help the undeserving rich.
  4. The only sure methods of dealing with the epidemic (before the coming of vaccines) are social distancing, masks and the avoidance of direct body contact, and quarantining — and these do work.
  5. Economic activity grinds to a halt, but new forms of employment emerge, such as enforcing quarantines or monitoring the spread of the disease through contact tracing.
  6. People who have contracted the disease but who do not yet exhibit symptoms are the principal transmitters of the disease to others.
  7. Government has no choice but to subsidize the lives of people who have no savings and cannot work, because the alternative is food riots, looting, and perhaps revolution.
  8. Quacks, charlatans, and mountebanks abound, as always, to exploit exploitable people.
  9. Bad leaders and some portions of the population spend their time embracing and spreading conspiracy theories and searching for some group, some nation, some tribe to blame for the catastrophe.
  10. Social mores, including sexual codes, begin to break down as people slowly adopt an “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you shall certainly die” attitude.
  11. The natural sociability of humanity is such that we invariably rush back into the public square too soon, before the disease has been mastered, thus causing a second or a third wave of infection and death.

 

 

 

 

UW Medicine to furlough 4,000 union employees

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/uw-medicine-to-furlough-4-000-union-employees.html?utm_medium=email

UW Medicine furloughing 1,500 staffers | News | dailyuw.com

UW Medicine will furlough approximately 4,000 unionized employees due to financial challenges related to COVID-19 response, the Seattle-based organization said May 25.

The furloughs will last at least one week and as many as eight weeks. Affected employees will maintain their healthcare benefits, including insurance, during the furlough.

“This has been a very difficult, but necessary, decision to address the financial challenges facing UW Medicine and all healthcare organizations responding to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Lisa Brandenburg, president of UW Medicine Hospitals & Clinics, said in a news release. “We have taken deliberate steps to ensure patient care is not impacted by aligning staff levels with current and predicted patient volumes including the return of elective procedures, expanded in-person clinical services and continued expansion of telehealth, while ensuring UW Medicine is prepared to respond to future surges of patients with COVID-19.”

The decision comes one week after UW Medicine announced furloughs of 1,500 professional and nonunion staff members. UW Medicine said executive leaders, directors and managers are also participating in furloughs.

The actions are intended to help the organization address an anticipated $500 million loss from the pandemic.

 

 

 

Employers seeking a “source of truth” for coronavirus guidance

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Employee Benefits, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mortality, Narrow Network, Network Design, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Strategy, Supply Chain, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/f2774a4ad1ea/the-weekly-gist-may-22-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

What Is Truth? | Psychology Today

As states begin to reopen, employers need guidance to ensure safe, COVID-free operations, and are beginning to call local health systems for advice on how to manage this daunting task. Providing this support is uncharted territory for most systems, and they’re learning on the fly as they bring back shuttered outpatient services and surgery centers themselves. This week we convened leaders from across our Gist Healthcare membership to share ideas on how to assist employers in bringing businesses safely back online—and to discuss whether the pandemic might create broader opportunities for working with the employer community.

It’s no surprise some companies are hoping that providers can step in to test their full workforce, but as several systems shared, “Even if we thought that was the right plan, testing supplies and PPE are still too limited for us to deliver on it now.” Better to support businesses in creating comprehensive screening strategies (with some offering their own app-based solutions), coupled with a testing plan for symptomatic employees.

Health systems have been surprised by the hunger for information on COVID-19 among the business community. Hundreds of companies have registered for informational webinars, hosted by systems through their local chambers of commerce. They’re excited to receive distilled information on local COVID-19 impact and response. As one leader said, the system isn’t really creating new educational content, but rather summarizing and synthesizing CDC, state and local guidance.

Business leaders are looking for “a source of truth” from their local health system amid conflicting guidelines and media reports. Case in point: employers are asking about the need for antibody testing, having been approached by testing vendors and feeling pressure from employees. Guidance from system doctors provides a plain-spoken interpretation on testing utility (great for looking at a population, meaningless right now for an individual), and helps them make smarter decisions and educate their workforce.

Health systems are hopeful that helping employers through the coronavirus crisis will lay the foundation for longer-term partnerships with employers, allowing them to continue to provide benefits through lower cost, coordinated care and network options. 

Timing is critical, and it may be smaller businesses that have the ability to change more quickly. Large companies have mostly locked in their benefits for 2021, whereas many mid-market businesses are looking for alternative options now.

Worksite health, telemedicine, and direct primary care arrangements are all on the table. One system surveyed local brokers and employers and found that 20 percent of mid-market employers are open to narrow-network partnerships. “The number seems low,” they reported, “but it’s up from five percent last year, a huge jump.” For systems seeking direct partnerships with employers, there’s a window of opportunity right now to find those businesses committed to continuing to offer benefits, who are looking for a creative, local alternative—and to get that first Zoom meeting on the calendar.

 

 

 

Further confusion on the coronavirus testing front

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mislead, Misleading, Mortality, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/f2774a4ad1ea/the-weekly-gist-may-22-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

Coronavirus test: confusion over availability and criteria is ...

With all 50 states now in the process of reopening, data reported by public health agencies on coronavirus testing is under increased scrutiny. The issue is not how many tests are being conducted—that number has dramatically increased nationwide (although experts still caution that total testing should be about three times higher than the current 300,000 per day).

Rather, as reported this week, the issue is what kind of tests are being included in public reporting. It emerged this week that several states—including Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Virginia—have been combining statistics on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, used to diagnose current infection, with antibody blood tests, used to detect past infection.

More troublingly, The Atlantic reported on Wednesday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been doing the same thing, which artificially inflates the number of tests conducted, and makes the numbers difficult to interpret. Among other experts, Dr. Ashish Jha, director of Harvard’s Global Public Health Institute, was stunned: “You’ve got to be kidding me. How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess.”

Accurate testing data is critical to determine the pace and scope of reopening, and to monitor for resurgences of the virus that might necessitate future restrictions. It’s important to know who’s infected now for clinical reasons, and it’s essential to understand who’s already been sick for public health purposes. Combining the two datasets is positively unhelpful, and likely only serves a political purpose.

Testing problems have proven to be this country’s original sin in the way the coronavirus pandemic has evolved, but it’s not too late to make sure that we have ample, accurate, and well-reported testing to guide critical public health decisions.

US coronavirus update: 1.62M cases, 95K+ confirmed deaths, 12.9M tests conducted (of some type).

 

 

 

Advocate Aurora reports Q1 operating loss, gets $328M bailout

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/advocate-aurora-reports-q1-operating-loss-gets-328m-bailout.html?utm_medium=email

MyAdvocateAurora | Health Record | Advocate Aurora Health

Advocate Aurora Health saw revenue increase year over year in the first quarter of this year, but it ended the period with an operating loss, according to recently released unaudited financial documents. 

Advocate Aurora Health, which was formed in 2018 and has dual headquarters in Downers Grove, Ill., and Milwaukee, reported revenue of $3.1 billion in the first quarter of 2020, up from $3 billion in the same period a year earlier. Patient service revenue climbed 3.5 percent year over year, while capitation revenue dropped 13.2 percent.

The health system said it began postponing or canceling elective procedures on March 17 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the public curtailed visits to physicians, clinics and emergency rooms for fear of contracting the virus.

“These actions have served to decrease revenues from non-COVID-19 patients while driving up costs to prepare for and care for COVID-19 patients with minimal additional revenues from these patients,” Advocate Aurora said.

To help offset financial damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the health system implemented cost-reduction measures. Since April 1, it has also received $328 million in grants made available through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and about $730 million in advance Medicare payments, which must be paid back.

Advocate Aurora’s expenses were up 9 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period of 2019. The increase was due in part to it acquiring the remaining 51 percent interest in Bay Area Medical Center in Marinette, Wis., in April 2019.

Advocate Aurora posted an operating loss of $85.6 million in the first quarter of this year. That’s compared to operating income of $112.8 million in the same period a year earlier. Excluding nonrecurring expenses, the health system posted an operating loss of $49.3 million in the first quarter of this year and operating income of $131.2 million a year earlier.

The 26-hospital system reported a nonoperating loss of $1.23 billion in the first quarter of this year, which was largely attributable to investment losses. Advocate Aurora ended the first quarter with a net loss of $1.3 billion, compared to net income of $596.8 million a year earlier. 

As of March 31, the health system had 229 days cash on hand, down from 274 days in December 2019.