Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Hospitals Will Lose $320B This Year From COVID-19, AHA Report Says
Hospitals and health systems will lose over $320 billion in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an American Hospital Association report Tuesday. More than $200 billion in financial losses occurred from March to June. But the AHA expects hospitals to lose another $120 billion鈥攁bout $20 billion per month鈥攖hrough year-end, mostly driven by lower patient volumes. (Brady, 6/30)
The daily email that arrived in physician Samantha Wang鈥檚 inbox at 8 a.m., just before morning rounds, contained a list of names and a warning: These patients are at high risk of dying within the next year. One name that turned up again and again belonged to a man in his 40s, who had been admitted to Stanford University鈥檚 hospital the previous month with a serious viral respiratory infection. He was still much too ill to go home, but Wang was a bit surprised that the email had flagged him among her patients least likely to be alive in a year鈥檚 time. (Robbins, 7/1)
Kaiser Health News: Among Those Disrupted By COVID-19: The Nation鈥檚 Newest Doctors
July 1 is a big day in medical education. It鈥檚 traditionally the day newly minted doctors start their first year of residency. But this year is different. Getting from here to there 鈥 from medical school to residency training sites 鈥 has been complicated by the coronavirus. 鈥淲e were all really freaking out,鈥 said Dr. Christine Petrin, who just graduated from medical school at Tulane University in New Orleans and is starting a combined residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. Students 鈥渕atched鈥 鈥 the term for finding out where they will spend their next several years training 鈥 in March, just as everything was shutting down because of the pandemic. (Rovner, 7/1)
After a year spent clearing one regulatory hurdle after another, East Boston Neighborhood Health Center has completed its takeover of South End Community Health Center. The coronavirus pandemic has changed much in the health care world since the deal was announced in June 2019, but not the rationale for the combination: to maintain the much-smaller South End center鈥檚 ability to deliver primary care, mental health care, and other services, mostly to poor and uninsured patients. (Edelman, 7/1)