Yes, Hospitals Get Paid More For Coronavirus-Coded Patients, Even If They Haven’t Been Tested

From the Daily Wire:

“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.”