USA Today reporter Michelle Rogers fact checked and found it true that hospitals get paid more if patients are listed as COVID-19, and significantly more if they end up on a ventilator.
Rogers was fact checking Dr. Scott Jensen's who noted in a national interview that: "Hospital administrators might well want to see COVID-19 attached to a discharge summary or a death certificate. Why? Because if it's a straight-forward, 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. 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."
Following their investigation, USA Today declared the statement accurate. As Dr. Jensen noted on his Facebook page, "How can anyone not believe that increasing the number of COVID-19 deaths may create an avenue for states to receive a larger portion of federal dollars. Already some states are complaining that they are not getting enough of the CARES Act dollars because they are having significantly more proportional COVID-19 deaths."
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