CARES Act funds disproportionately favored well-funded hospitals

Image: John Fedele/Getty Pictures

There is wide variation in the funding dispersed to hospitals as a result of the Coronavirus Assist, Aid, and Financial Stability (CARES) Act, according to an assessment of 952 healthcare facility-amount entities released in JAMA Health and fitness Discussion board. Investigation was done by Rand Corp.
 
The assessment uncovered hospitals with higher pre–COVID-19 assets – all those in a more robust fiscal condition prior to the pandemic – received much more funding. Rural hospitals and important obtain hospitals received a lot less fiscal guidance.
 
Though reduction disproportionately went to much more useful resource-abundant hospitals, the research also indicated funding achieved hospitals with a larger sized proportion of people infected by COVID-19.
 
Hospitals with larger sized endowments and cumulative property, as nicely as academic-affiliated hospitals, also received higher concentrations of funding, the research uncovered.
 
Congress has doled out much more than $sixty five billion in money due to the fact May possibly 31, 2020, the research pointed out, dispersed in two rounds. Hospitals received an common of $22.1 million in the 1st round and $eleven.5 million in the 2nd spherical.
 
The report mentioned as the pandemic evolves, even more studies need to take a look at the outcomes of differential CARES Act funding on healthcare facility investments, technologies and behavior.
 
“Though it is acknowledged what the funding allocation formulas are, it is unclear how these money have been specific to hospitals in relation to their pre–COVID-19 finances, which is an significant policy dilemma to inform upcoming useful resource allocations,” the report mentioned.
 
WHY THIS Issues
 
Hospitals have endured a huge fiscal shock owing to the pandemic as a lot of people averted receiving care and elective surgeries, resulting in sharply decreased revenues. In response to this, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Providers supplied fiscal guidance to hospitals as a result of the CARES Act.
 
“This disparity in funding may perhaps be of distinct curiosity mainly because a lot of important obtain and rural hospitals faced fiscal pressures even ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the research mentioned. “Policymakers need to continue to make certain that these styles of hospitals are sufficiently funded, potentially with additional rounds of funding.”
 
THE Much larger Trend
 
The pandemic continues to strain healthcare facility finances as they deal with higher prices, decreased revenues and team burnout. Meanwhile, provide chain disruptions and shortages have pushed up rates and pressured a return to the prices of carrying larger sized inventories, according to Kaufman Hall’s 2021 Healthcare Efficiency Improvement Report.
 
The pandemic has also resulted in higher expenditures for necessities these types of as particular protecting tools. Hospitals have invested much more than $3 billion securing PPE, according to data unveiled previously this thirty day period by Leading.
 
Hospitals are projected to get rid of $54 billion in net cash flow this year, according to a September Kaufman Corridor assessment unveiled by the American Hospital Association.
 
ON THE Document
 
“The common payment for suppliers in medically underserved locations was over $twenty,000 higher than all those in useful resource-abundant environments,” the report mentioned. “Not only does this data point out that all those locations in the greatest have to have received much more payments, but they also received higher valued payments.”

Twitter: @dropdeaded209
Electronic mail the writer: [email protected]