Hospitals make most of their money performing elective procedures. They break even on most normal care. They usually lose money on highly specialized care like patients on ventilator for covid. Covid stopped all elective procedures for months and it hasn't come all the way back yet. Where my sister works, they cut 20% of they staff throughout the entire hospital system.
My brother’s hospital group got millions in government assistance. They spent that paying big bonuses to leadership. Doctors and nurses got zero. Nobody was watching over the money from the government. I wonder why.
The critical access rural hospital in my area laid off ~%70 of their staff a month or so before the initial lockdown. This follows years of deceptive billing practices, litigiously trying to prevent any competition moving into the area, and years of toxic-workplace lawsuits they were constantly having to settle.
The same hospital tried to fire (and sue) my mother — who was a nurse there until she passed away from a very short and nasty battle with cancer. They had accused her of faking her brain and lung cancer. While she died from it. This was 2006 — I wish I had been older at the time because I would have sued them to ashes.
Anyway, moral of the story from my perspective: Healthcare-as-business is wildly unethical and should be outlawed coast to coast :)
ss_lbguy on September 19th, 2020 at 13:29 UTC »
Hospitals make most of their money performing elective procedures. They break even on most normal care. They usually lose money on highly specialized care like patients on ventilator for covid. Covid stopped all elective procedures for months and it hasn't come all the way back yet. Where my sister works, they cut 20% of they staff throughout the entire hospital system.
egregiousmonkey on September 19th, 2020 at 13:31 UTC »
My brother’s hospital group got millions in government assistance. They spent that paying big bonuses to leadership. Doctors and nurses got zero. Nobody was watching over the money from the government. I wonder why.
jessyblorp on September 19th, 2020 at 13:53 UTC »
The critical access rural hospital in my area laid off ~%70 of their staff a month or so before the initial lockdown. This follows years of deceptive billing practices, litigiously trying to prevent any competition moving into the area, and years of toxic-workplace lawsuits they were constantly having to settle.
The same hospital tried to fire (and sue) my mother — who was a nurse there until she passed away from a very short and nasty battle with cancer. They had accused her of faking her brain and lung cancer. While she died from it. This was 2006 — I wish I had been older at the time because I would have sued them to ashes.
Anyway, moral of the story from my perspective: Healthcare-as-business is wildly unethical and should be outlawed coast to coast :)