That is somewhat accurate and varies by hospital. A Covid admission with no complications could be the 13k one. Same as pneumonia. Any visit that requires a ventilator will jump substantially due to cost.
The thing is there is no administrator pushing MORE ventilator admissions. Those are losers, big time. The billed charges (that you would never receive) on vent patient would be way past 39k. Sometimes $100k’s.
Also, these are Medicare numbers. Medicare is cost based. So there is an annual audit of all costs under the Medicare prospective payment system. If you were able to provide ventilator care for an average of $32k. You would have your Medicare rate reduced to benefit from those savings. The range in the Tulsa market on Medicare costs are varied. A reimbursement at the two catholic hospitals might be $10k. That same drg and number of days will vary from $13,800 to $7,200 at the other hospitals. And the $7,200 is way more financially stable because they don’t have uncompensated care. Those aren’t real numbers but approximations with $10k as the median for simplicity.
In short, no one is admitting and venting patients for the additional reimbursement. And I could get behind a theory that we didn’t treat it the best way initially. Hospitals are getting better.
Our rural hospital has yet to vent a non vaccinated person. And patients aren’t coming off vents.
clarification: I’m gonna ignore the hcq and remdisvr talk. Those are politicized meds. We used both with minimal success. That said the antibody infusion is a huge winner. But it’s not FDA approved yet so most of the agginers won’t take it.
Last edited: Sep 15, 2021
