hospitals | The Georgia Star News

Study: Many Hospitals Profited During COVID Pandemic

July 25, 2023July 25, 2023 Georgia Star News Staff

A new study reveals that nearly 75 percent of all U.S. hospitals were able to post positive operating income at the height of the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic, primarily due to relief funds provided by the government.

As Axios reports, the analysis by JAMA Health Forum shows that the average hospital’s operating margins – the difference between revenue and expenses – hit an all-time high in 2020 and 2021, the first two years of the pandemic. Many hospitals continue to post improving operating margins even after 2022 despite the rising inflation, which some have attributed to the massive profits in the first two years of COVID.

Dozens of Hospitals Have Closed in States That Expanded Medicaid, Research Shows

February 15, 2023 Georgia Star News Staff

Medicaid expansion has failed to prevent hospital closure, with almost 50 shutting down in expansion states since 2014, according to research given exclusively to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The research from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) indicates that while Medicaid expansion was intended to solve hospitals’ finances and job shortage, its “empty promises” have done the opposite, report author Hayden Dublois wrote. Hospitals instead have had to shut their doors, lost thousands of jobs and racked up substantial losses, amounting to a loss of almost 5,400 beds.

Report: 78 Percent of Georgia Hospitals Are Not Following Federal Accurate Pricing Law

August 23, 2022August 23, 2022 The Center Square

A year-and-a-half after a law requiring hospitals to post accurate prices online went into effect, roughly three-quarters of Georgia hospitals continue to hide the cost of care from consumers.

That’s according to a new report from PatientRightsAdvocate.org. The organization reviewed 2,000 of the 6,000 accredited hospitals nationwide and found that a mere 16% complied with a federal hospital price transparency rule that took effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

In Georgia, 78% of hospitals are non-compliant.

Gov. Kemp Plans to Use $217 Million in Federal Funds for Georgia Healthcare Facility Grants

March 14, 2022March 13, 2022 The Center Square

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp plans to use more than $217 million in federal money to fund grants for hospitals, assisted living communities and personal care homes.

The state will use money from the American Rescue Plan’s (ARP) Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds for grants to bolster COVID-19 response efforts.

Commentary: Joe Biden’s Failed Policies Has Lead to a COVID Test Shortage

January 9, 2022January 9, 2022 Admin

President Joe Biden walks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as he departs the U.S. Capitol after addressing the House Democratic Caucus, Thursday, October 28, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

America has basically run out of tests for Covid-19 as lines are forming at emergency rooms, urgent care facilities and doctors’ offices, and now patients are simply being turned away nationwide. In the meantime, tests are being rationed to those with greater risk factors just a month after President Joe Biden was pushing “test to stay” in order for Americans to be allowed to go to work, school and to travel.

This comes as the Institutes for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) project an estimated 1.9 million probable Covid infections in the U.S per day — and rising. By the end of January, IHME estimates as many as 2.8 million new cases per day, largely thanks to the new omicron variant that accounts for 95 percent of all new cases, the Centers for Disease Control say.

For perspective, last year, IHME estimated cases peaked at over 500,000 a day in early Jan. 2021.

Hospitals Are Getting Away with Ignoring Price Transparency Rules, Experts Say

January 8, 2022January 7, 2022 Georgia Star News Staff

Many hospitals are not complying with laws requiring them to make their healthcare prices publicly available, according to multiple reports, and the Biden administration has so far refrained from issuing penalties.

The Hospital Price Transparency rule, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2021, is designed to promote competition in healthcare markets by requiring hospitals to post their prices, so that consumers can compare and shop between hospitals. The law mandates hospitals to post their pricing data “as a comprehensive machine-readable file with all items and services” as well as “in a display of shoppable services in a consumer-friendly format.”

However, according to recent reports, many hospitals have yet to comply with the rules a year after they have been in effect. An investigation by The Wall Street Journal last week found that many of the nation’s largest hospital chains were not complying with the new rules.

Facing Labor Shortages, Several Large Hospital Systems Drop Vaccine Mandates

December 15, 2021December 14, 2021 Georgia Star News Staff

Several large U.S. hospital systems have dropped their COVID-19 vaccine requirements for employees in the wake of a U.S. district court’s temporary halt of the Biden regime’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

After months of protests, the mandate forced thousands of hospital employees to either resign, or be terminated because of their refusal to get vaccinated.

Louisiana-based federal Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction on November 30, blocking the federal government from mandating the experimental injections for workers at Medicare or Medicaid-funded healthcare facilities in 40 states.

Nurses in Illinois Win Temporary Restraining Order Against Vaccine Mandate

October 26, 2021October 25, 2021 Admin

An Illinois judge granted a temporary restraining order to nurses who sued Riverside Healthcare over the hospital system’s vaccine mandate.

Kankakee County Judge Nancy Nicholson granted a temporary restraining order until Nov. 19. She will then hold a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction requested by the nurses.

Flooding Could Wipe Out 25 Percent of Critical Infrastructure: Report

October 13, 2021 Admin

About 25% of critical infrastructure in the U.S., or 36,000 facilities, is at serious risk of being rendered inoperable as a result of flooding over the next three decades, according to an industry report released Monday.

American infrastructure such as police stations, airports, hospitals, wastewater treatment facilities, churches and schools were all considered in the analysis, according to First Street Foundation, the group that published the first-of-its-kind report. The U.S. is “ill-prepared” for a scenario where major flooding events become more commonplace, the report concluded.

COVID Case Numbers Surge in New England, Despite Region Having Highest Vaccinate Rate in U.S.

October 7, 2021 Admin

Hospitals across New England are reporting full intensive care units and staff shortages as a result of COVID- related illnesses that are starting to impact care, despite the region having the highest vaccination rates in the country.

Public officials say the record case counts, hospitalizations and deaths that rival pre-vaccine peaks are largely among the unvaccinated and are pleading with the part of the population to get the shots, according to the Associated Press.

Health and Human Services Whistleblower Calls Federal Government’s COVID Policies ‘Evil at the Highest Level’

September 22, 2021September 21, 2021 Georgia Star News Staff

A medical professional who works for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is blowing the whistle on the federal government for pushing dangerous experimental vaccines on an unsuspecting public, calling the malfeasance “evil at the highest level.”

“You have the FDA, you have the CDC, that are both supposed to be protecting us, Registered Nurse Jodi O’Malley told Project Veritas founder and CEO James O’Keefe, “and everything that we’ve done so far is unscientific.”

The whistleblower works at Phoenix Indian Medical Center, an Arizona hospital run by the Indian Health branch of HHS, but perhaps not for long. After contacting O’Keefe, she recorded some of her HHS colleagues raising concerns about the COVID vaccines. Putting her faith in God, O’Malley said that after everything she had witnessed, she was willing to lose her job to expose the federal government’s counterproductive and destructive COVID policies.

New Federal Rule: No More Surprise Hospital Bills and More Options for Consumers

February 5, 2021February 4, 2021 The Center Square

Hospitals have begun publishing their actual costs of services, including discounted cash and negotiated rates as a result of a rule change implemented by former President Donald Trump. The rule was challenged by the American Hospital Association and others, who lost in federal district court.

An appeal to the court ruling has not yet been filed. While the association says it is calling on the new administration to adjust the rule, hospitals in the meantime must publish prices for the majority of the services and medications they provide.

Commentary: Five Ways Hospitals Can Help Fix Vaccine Rollout Debacle

January 21, 2021January 20, 2021 RealClearWire

Hospitals have come under sharp criticism for their part in the chaotic COVID-19 vaccine rollout. That’s because in the rush to get the vaccine out quickly, many hospitals were shipped more vaccine than anticipated and fewer staff took it than anticipated. As a result, hospitals accrued a vaccine surplus and offered it to their low-risk grad students and young administrative staff working from home and are now scrambling to figure out what to do with the rest. The answer should be simple: give it to older members of your community, but a recent letter from the American Hospital Association cited a number of important barriers to effective vaccine distribution including a lack of coordination and guidance from federal, state, and local governments.

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