I'm just going to say inaccurate. I'm not going to say overblown, I'm not going to say under counted. Feel free to post your evidence either way, anecdotal or empirical. I've just seen too much BS posted to discount it at this standpoint, so in true disclosure, I believe the numbers are overstated. To what extent, I cannot be sure. I see tweets like this all over the place. I see news articles talking about how the CARES act allows for hospitals to get more money with COVID patients and patients on ventilators. I see the Tucker Carlson video showing the doctors from California who were banned from Youtube for stating how they are being encouraged to mark Covid on the patient's death certificate. Some of this could be misinformation. All of it? I don't think so.
Seems we continue to have more questions than answers that make sense. One of the many questions that now arise would be, why aren't "essential workers" dying by the thousands? They're out there all day, everyday, exposed and vulnerable. You telling me that a mask and pair of gloves is all it takes to remain "safe"? If so, why don't we all go back to work wearing masks and gloves?
Yes, Hospitals Get Paid More For Coronavirus-Coded Patients, Even If They Haven’t Been Tested https://www.dailywire.com/news/yes-...oded-patients-even-if-they-havent-been-tested Hospitals get paid more money if a patient is coded for the novel coronavirus, even if they haven’t been tested in some states, multiple fact-checking sites have confirmed, including USA Today, Politifact, and Snopes. Hospitals get a 20% add-on for COVID-19-coded patients and roughly three times as much if such patients are placed on a ventilator. In the beginning of April, physician and State Sen. Scott Jensen (R-MN) notified the public of the policy and later emphasized on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” that “anytime health care intersects with dollars, it gets awkward.” “Right now Medicare has determined that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you’ll get paid $13,000,” Jensen said on the Fox program. “If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000; three times as much. Nobody can tell me, after 35 years in the world of medicine, that sometimes those kinds of things [have] impact on what we do.” “Some physicians really have a bent towards public health and they will put down influenza or whatever because that’s their preference,” he continued. “I try to stay very specific, very precise. If I know I’ve got pneumonia, that’s what’s going on the death certificate. I’m not going to add stuff just because it’s convenient.” On Facebook, the Republican reiterated, “How can anyone not believe that increasing the number of COVID-19 deaths may create an avenue for states to receive a larger portion of federal dollars. Already some states are complaining that they are not getting enough of the CARES Act dollars because they are having significantly more proportional COVID-19 deaths.” “Hospital administrators might well want to see COVID-19 attached to a discharge summary or a death certificate. Why? Because if it’s a straightforward, garden-variety pneumonia that a person is admitted to the hospital for – if they’re Medicare – typically, the diagnosis-related group lump sum payment would be $5,000,” he added on April 19. “But if it’s COVID-19 pneumonia, then it’s $13,000, and if that COVID-19 pneumonia patient ends up on a ventilator, it goes up to $39,000.” Speaking to USA Today, Marty Makary, a surgeon and professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said via email on April 21, “What Scott Jensen said sounds right to me.” “We rate the claim that hospitals get paid more if patients are listed as COVID-19 and on ventilators as TRUE,” USA Today declared in a Friday fact-check. “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,” the fact-checker explains. “This higher allocation of funds has been made possible under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act through a Medicare 20% add-on to its regular payment for COVID-19 patients, as verified by USA TODAY through the American Hospital Association Special Bulletin on the topic,” the outlet added. Politifact conceded, “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.” And, as noted by Snopes, the best estimates for pay-outs to hospitals for uninsured patients match Sen. Jensen’s $13,000 and $39,000 figures. “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,” said healthcare nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. “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.” The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a subscriber.
Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilators https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ore-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/ The claim: Hospitals get paid more if patients are listed as COVID-19, and on ventilators Sen. Scott Jensen, R-Minn., a physician in Minnesota, was interviewed by "The Ingraham Angle" host Laura Ingraham on April 8 on Fox News and claimed hospitals get paid more if Medicare patients are listed as having COVID-19 and get three times as much money if they need a ventilator. The claim was published April 9 by The Spectator, a conservative publication. WorldNetDaily shared it April 10 and, according to Snopes, a related meme was shared on social media in mid-April. Jensen took it to his own Facebook page April 15, saying, in part: "How can anyone not believe that increasing the number of COVID-19 deaths may create an avenue for states to receive a larger portion of federal dollars. Already some states are complaining that they are not getting enough of the CARES Act dollars because they are having significantly more proportional COVID-19 deaths." higher Medicare allocation allowed under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. Past practice, Jensen said, did not include probabilities. coronavirus relief legislation created a 20% premium, or add-on, for COVID-19 Medicare patients. There have been no public reports that hospitals are exaggerating COVID-19 numbers to receive higher Medicare payments. Jensen didn't explicitly make that claim. He simply suggested there is an "avenue" to do so now that "plausible" COVID-19, not just laboratory-confirmed, cases can be greenlighted for Medicare payment and eligible for the 20% add-on allowed under the relief act. disbursed according to 2019 Medicare reimbursements. The second wave will focus on providers in areas more heavily affected by the outbreak, according to Kaiser Health News, giving rise to Jensen's concern that hospitals could exploit the CDC's guidelines allowing presumed cases. Jensen did not return an email request from USA TODAY for comment about his claim. USA TODAY reached out to Marty Makary, a surgeon and professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, about the claim. Makary said in an email April 21 that "what Scott Jensen said sounds right to me." Makary did not elaborate, answer additional questions or respond to a request for an interview. USA TODAY reached out to the American Hospital Association and Federation of American Hospitals on April 22, but as of publication had not received a response. How does Medicare pay? Snopes investigated the claim, finding it's plausible Medicare pays in the range Jensen mentions but doesn't have a "one-size-fits-all" payment to hospitals for COVID-19 patients. As explained by nurse Elizabeth Davis in her piece for verywellhealth.com, each hospital has a base payment rate assigned by Medicare. It takes into account nationwide and regional trends, including labor costs and varying health care resources in each market. Then, each diagnosis-related group, which classifies various diagnoses into groups and subgroups, is assigned a weight based on the average amount of resources it takes to care for a patient. Those figures are multiplied to determine the payment from Medicare. A hospital in one city and state may be paid more or less for treating a patient than a hospital in another. PolitiFact reporter Tom Kertscher wrote, "The dollar amounts Jensen cited are roughly what we found in an analysis published April 7 by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a leading source of health information." Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilatorsFact check: Is the economy still in a better place than when Obama left office?Fact check: Conspiracy theorists claim Nancy Pelosi visited Wuhan in November. She did notFact check: Was second wave of Spanish flu worse? Did it kill at least 20 million people? 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." Julie Aultman, a member of the editorial board of the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics, told PolitiFact it is “very unlikely that physicians or hospitals will falsify data or be motivated by money to do so.” 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. This higher allocation of funds has been made possible under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act through a Medicare 20% add-on to its regular payment for COVID-19 patients, as verified by USA TODAY through the American Hospital Association Special Bulletin on the topic. Our fact-check sources The Spectator: "Hospitals get more to list patients as COVID-19 and three times as much if the patient goes on ventilator" The World Net Daily: "Hospitals get paid more to list patients as COVID-19" Snopes: "Is Medicare paying hospitals $13K for patients diagnosed with COVID-19, $39K for those on ventilators PolitiFact: "Hospitals get paid more to list patients as COVID-19" Kaiser Health News: "Estimated cost for treating the uninsured hospitalized with COVID-19" Factcheck.org: "Hospital Payments and the COVID-19 Death Count" Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: "Guidance for Certifying Death Due to COVID-19" Verywellhealth.com: "How a DRG determines how much a hospital gets paid" American Hospital Association Special Bulletin American Hospital Association special bulletin. Email response from Marty Makary, a surgeon and professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/us-data/ Changes in United States Data following the new CDC guidelines on "Case" and "Death" definition Following new CDC guidelines: "As of April 14, 2020, CDC case counts and death counts include both confirmed and probable cases and deaths. This change was made to reflect an interim COVID-19 position statement issued by the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists on April 5, 2020. The position statement included a case definition and made COVID-19 a nationally notifiable disease. A confirmed case or death is defined by meeting confirmatory laboratory evidence for COVID-19. A probable case or death is defined by i) meeting clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19; or ii) meeting presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence; or iii) meeting vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID19" [source] This change is a further example of one of the many reasons why the label "confirmed cases" (used by some to designate total cases) is incorrect (see definitions for more details). The US CDC (and Worldometer) has always used the label "Total Cases." Canada is another example where the "total number includes publicly reported confirmed and probable cases [source] On April 14, New York City reported 3,778 additional deaths that have occurred since March 11 and have been classified as "probable," defined as follows: “decedent [...] had no known positive laboratory test for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) but the death certificate lists as a cause of death “COVID-19” or an equivalent" [source]. From April 14 onward, New York City has provided - and will continue to provide - the updated number of probable deaths in its daily reports. Ssince every probable death necessarily implies a probable case, logic mandates that the adjustment be made to both deaths and cases, and not only to deaths. We have adjusted for New York State and the United States accordingly. As with similar instances in the past (related to other countries), we had initially added the additional data on the day it was reported before redistributing it over the reference period (March 14 to April 14) once more information became available. On April 15, in the daily press briefing, New York Governor Cuomo said that "we will begin reporting all categories of fatalities pursuant to new CDC guidelines and are contacting facilities to get updated numbers." He also added that there may be additional people who died that have not been counted because not in a hospital. In the April 15 update, the New York State Department of Health official website had still not included (nor reported separately) the additional "probable" deaths reported by New York City the day before. On April 16, when asked about the issue, New York State officials commented on their decision to not add the New York City probable deaths in the official State count saying that probable deaths have been reported by New York City in a new and separate category, without adding the two numbers (confirmed and probable) together into a single category. The state of Ohio is an example of a state that has started reporting total cases and deaths correctly, in accordance with the new CDC guidelines. On its "Overview dashboard" it show total cases and total deaths, while also providing the breakdown between confirmed and probable, with the note "CDC Expanded Case Definition (Probable)" and "CDC Expanded Death Definition (Probable)." Other examples are: Idaho, whose total includes both laboratory confirmed and probable cases. Colorado: whose total includes both, with a note explaining that "The number of cases includes people who have had a test that indicated they were positive for COVID-19. The number of cases also includes epidemiologically-linked cases -- or cases where public health epidemiologists have determined that infection is highly likely because a person exhibited symptoms and had close contact with someone who tested positive. The number of epidemiologically-linked cases represents a very small portion of the reported cases." Wyoming: shows both laboratory confirmed and probable cases separately. Maryland: shows both confirmed and probable deaths, separately and in a statistical summary below the main dashboard Worldometer is also following the new CDC guideline of including both probable and confirmed in the total case and death counts.
In Publix, where the cashiers are now behind glass plates and wearing masks. Yet they handle all the items the customer placed on the belt with their bare hands and pass these items and money back to the customer who takes it in their bare hands. Total stupidity of the highest order.
Numbers are grossly UNDERREPORTED for deaths. I suspect intentionally, to reduce panic. Research and rely on what's known as EXCESS MORTALITY figures for true count. Millions worldwide will die within a year