The coming hospital crisis

[Horace]

It's not clear to me how policy relates to hospitals doing no business. I assume hospitals are considered essential and not covered by the lock down policies. Heck, even the place I work for isn't covered and we're hardly front line health care workers. So why are hospitals all but shut down these days?

[89th]

@jon-nyc said in The coming hospital crisis:

Holy shit. This is a pretty clear apples to Swedish apples map, no?

[jon-nyc]

It’s clear but if you put Sweden next to UK, Spain, Italy, France it looks fine.

Seems like density, culture, climate, etc would suggest the Scandinavian comparison is the apt one but maybe there’s a good reason that isn’t the case.

[Klaus]

Ms. Klaus was recently notified that her salary will be cut by 25% because the hospital lost so much money.

Next time hospitals here will be asked to cancel everything and prepare for a pandemic they’ll show the politicians their middle finger.

[jon-nyc]

@Rainman said in The coming hospital crisis:

So if hospitals are going broke, health insurance companies are booming, right?

The biggest part of heath insurance is simply claims management for ‘self-insured’ corporations. In other words, when IBM contracts (say) United Heathcare to provide health insurance to its employees, UHC administers claims but bills the underlying healthcare directly directly to IBM, along with their own administration fees.

So they might even be losing money, depending on how their contracts work.

It’s different in the individual and small group market, those act more like traditional insurance. But they are also dealing with fewer people able to pay claims so who knows how that’s netting out for them.

[jon-nyc]

@Klaus

Understandable, but only implementable if they don’t mind proceeding as normal but with no PPE.

[jon-nyc]

@Horace said in The coming hospital crisis:

It's not clear to me how policy relates to hospitals doing no business. I assume hospitals are considered essential and not covered by the lock down policies. Heck, even the place I work for isn't covered and we're hardly front line health care workers. So why are hospitals all but shut down these days?

They’re not shut down, they’re restricted in which services they can provide. The ‘no elective procedures’ is policy based and I believe is primarily due to a shortage of PPE.

But surely, like everything else, policy is only part of the story. Most people didn’t need to be told in April that bringing grandma to a busy urban hospital for cataracts wasn’t a good idea.

[jon-nyc]

@jon-nyc said in The coming hospital crisis:

@Klaus

Understandable, but only implementable if they don’t mind proceeding as normal but with no PPE.

But maybe next time countries will have a strategic reserve of PPE and won’t have to. One would hope, right?

[Horace]

@jon-nyc said in The coming hospital crisis:

Usually the conversation is about policy. I think that Covid Doves in general have yet to concede the point that policy isn’t the problem, the fucking virus is.

I'm happy to not concede your notion that regardless of what our social response is, the effect of the response is the effect of the virus. I really don't think that's a reasonable notion.

[Loki]

Elective surgery is generally not “optional”. Over time it is no longer elective. Ergo the demand destruction is not as bad and in fact the cases entering will be more complicated and more costly- I.e. more billable services. In the meantime some people will die before they see a doc or a hospital for sure.

Yeah, things are really bad but not nearly as bad for others. They will be hit much harder as we stay all stay home.

[Mik]

@jon-nyc said in The coming hospital crisis:

@jon-nyc said in The coming hospital crisis:

@Klaus

Understandable, but only implementable if they don’t mind proceeding as normal but with no PPE.

But maybe next time countries will have a strategic reserve of PPE and won’t have to. One would hope, right?

One would hope. But I also think states need to help themselves here.

[89th]

As with most of my posts, this adds no value...but this thread has reminded me of how little I understand the financial world of hospitals and health care. I’m used to traditional business income statements and balance sheets.

[jon-nyc]

@Horace said in The coming hospital crisis:

@jon-nyc said in The coming hospital crisis:

Usually the conversation is about policy. I think that Covid Doves in general have yet to concede the point that policy isn’t the problem, the fucking virus is.

I'm happy to not concede your notion that regardless of what our social response is, the effect of the response is the effect of the virus. I really don't think that's a reasonable notion.

It’s obviously not true across every conceivable societal response, but it’s approximately true across actually existing responses, or at least true enough to render many of the complaints about ‘lockdown’ either moot or misdirected.

[Copper]

We have had pandemics before without the massive overreaction.

[Horace]

@jon-nyc said in The coming hospital crisis:

@Horace said in The coming hospital crisis:

@jon-nyc said in The coming hospital crisis:

Usually the conversation is about policy. I think that Covid Doves in general have yet to concede the point that policy isn’t the problem, the fucking virus is.

I'm happy to not concede your notion that regardless of what our social response is, the effect of the response is the effect of the virus. I really don't think that's a reasonable notion.

It’s obviously not true across every conceivable societal response, but it’s approximately true across actually existing responses, or at least true enough to render many of the complaints about ‘lockdown’ either moot or misdirected.

"Masks and protective measures up to but not including always staying home" was never tried.