Covid - 19 - Louisiana Edition

[HogDawg]

I wish I could remember who the official was that said this on tv at a briefing, but basically they said: "If a person who is under hospice care and contracts coronavirus and dies, their death would be counted as a coronavirus death".

They were already dying anyway, thus the hospice care. But there is money given for a coronavirus death as opposed to a cancer death.

According to this article, you don't have anything to worry about, because the doctors took a Hippocratic Oath!! LOL!

“There’s an implication here that hospitals are over-reporting their COVID patients because they have an economic advantage of doing so, [which] is really an outrageous claim,” UCLA senior fellow Gerald Kominski told the fact-checking site. He said any suggestion that patients may be put on ventilators out of financial gain, not medical need, “is basically saying physicians are violating their Hippocratic Oath … it would be like providing heart surgery on someone who doesn’t need it.”

Hospitals have another motive not to inflate COVID-19 death numbers. If the numbers don’t add up, they could expose themselves to Medicare audits, and civil and criminal penalties.

By the way, Whitehouse Coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx told CDC Director Robert Redfield to his face "there is nothing from the CDC that I can trust". It's in the same article.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/as-u-s-co...is-exaggerated

[Guisslapp]

According to this article, you don't have anything to worry about, because the doctors took a Hippocratic Oath!! LOL!

By the way, Whitehouse Coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx told CDC Director Robert Redfield to his face "there is nothing from the CDC that I can trust". It's in the same article.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/as-u-s-co...is-exaggerated

The Medicare audits is the big issue for hospitals. It would be stupid to do.

But the article hints at the origin of Cartek’s and others confusion. Low and behold it was a statement made by a Republican politician that distorted a statement made by a state director of public health (Ezike)

So, everyone who's listed as a COVID death doesn't mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of the death,” she said.

"You could be driving home and be in an auto accident and die from that," Darren Bailey, a Republican Illinois lawmaker suing Gov. JB Pritzker to reopen the state, told WAND-TV on Monday. "And if you had COVID-19 in your system, that death gets labeled as COVID."

The next day, Ezike offered clarification. She told reporters that Illinois was not counting those whose COVID-19 infection had nothing to do with their death.

“We are trying to make sure that things that aren’t related at all to the COVID diagnosis are removed, but if someone has another illness, like heart disease, and then had a stroke or other event, it’s not as easy to separate that and say COVID didn’t exacerbate that existing illness. That would not be removed from the count,” she said.

[Guisslapp]

From USA Today Factcheck:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/

1. Why would that apply to hospice where patients agree not to receive life-sustaining treatments for disease.

2. As I have stated multiple times and even your FoxNews article acknowledges, you guys are accusing doctors and hospitals of fraud. Fine if you regally believe doctors are unethical, but even if you think that you can’t surely thing that they would risk the criminal penalties with Medicare fraud for a 20 percent premium.

[dawg80]

Another wrongful death lawsuit filed against the Natchitoches Nursing and Rehab Center. And two longtime employees, Stacy Masters and Miranda Green, who held supervisory positions, are also named defendents. This is all a matter of public record. Not surprisingly all three attorneys working for themselves...and I guess on behalf of the plaintives too...are well-known scumbag ambulance chasers. And I know all three very well. I have done business with two of them, and the other I coached in baseball when he was a youngster, his older brother too.

Well...if I wanted to hire an assassin to kill someone (and I don't...at the moment) I would want the meanest, nastiest, most foul killer (with big pointy nasty teeth!) I could find. Same is true for hiring an attorney. When it's time to get down in the gutter...hire the biggest scumbags you can find to do your dirty work. Well, in this case, bam!

The details of the petition has been made public. It basically claims the facility and the two named defendants failed to take ordinary precautions and care re: protecting vulnerable patients against C-19.

Speaking of that...the latest numbers across the state, with the 2,300+ deaths total, show that just over 900 of those deaths were elderly patients in nursing home and assisted living facilities. I actually expected that number to be a little higher. That still leaves over 1,400 deaths of "others" who were not among the most vulnerable. Although, most of those did have pre-existing medical conditions that greatly contributed to their deaths.

[PawDawg]

1. Why would that apply to hospice where patients agree not to receive life-sustaining treatments for disease.

2. As I have stated multiple times and even your FoxNews article acknowledges, you guys are accusing doctors and hospitals of fraud. Fine if you regally believe doctors are unethical, but even if you think that you can’t surely thing that they would risk the criminal penalties with Medicare fraud for a 20 percent premium.

"Applying to hospice" is not a process. It is a life event, when a loved one is about to die and all life saving measures are prolonging the obvious. The paperwork takes less than 5 minutes and is not like purchasing a house or auto.. On very rare occasions the patient is able to come back off hospice, although I've never known a patient who did.

You are getting medical coding issues confused with medicaid/medicare fraud. Coding for profit and convenience is the norm and has been since your boy LBJ started the great society that has us where we are today.

[Guisslapp]

"Applying to hospice" is not a process. It is a life event, when a loved one is about to die and all life saving measures are prolonging the obvious. The paperwork takes less than 5 minutes and is not like purchasing a house or auto.. On very rare occasions the patient is able to come back off hospice, although I've never known a patient who did.

You are getting medical coding issues confused with medicaid/medicare fraud. Coding for profit and convenience is the norm and has been since your boy LBJ started the great society that has us where we are today.

I wasn’t talking about applying for hospice - I was talking about the CARES act not applying to hospice patients because they are not getting treatment for COVID.

My father-in-law has been the process, and my mother-in-law is in hospice care now. I do understand how it works. And I do know someone that has come off hospice, but that is a fairly unique situation.

Improper coding is a basis for Medicare fraud. Saying a patient died of COVID where that was not the case to get 20% premium would not be wise. Stupid risk to take.

[PawDawg]

Improper coding is a basis for Medicare fraud. Saying a patient died of COVID where that was not the case to get 20% premium would not be wise. Stupid risk to take.

According to many reports (one of your terms) improper coding coding of China Virus is the norm and has been since back in March.

Considering that state run hospitals and private facilities that depended on normal conditions to make a profit or even to break even were disrupted by the false need for bed space and vents the feds and states will, IMO, overlook the things they've already encouraged them to do like coding to show the China Virus as much as possible.

[PawDawg]

Oh, and it would be easy for the coroner to label a hospice patient "death by China Virus". Unless the family balked on the cause of death, who cares? The death tally needs to be as high as possible to make the "pandemic" appear lethal and not a government over reaction.

[dawg80]

Another wrongful death lawsuit filed against the Natchitoches Nursing and Rehab Center. And two longtime employees, Stacy Masters and Miranda Green, who held supervisory positions, are also named defendents. This is all a matter of public record. Not surprisingly all three attorneys working for themselves...and I guess on behalf of the plaintives too...are well-known scumbag ambulance chasers. And I know all three very well. I have done business with two of them, and the other I coached in baseball when he was a youngster, his older brother too.

Well...if I wanted to hire an assassin to kill someone (and I don't...at the moment) I would want the meanest, nastiest, most foul killer (with big pointy nasty teeth!) I could find. Same is true for hiring an attorney. When it's time to get down in the gutter...hire the biggest scumbags you can find to do your dirty work. Well, in this case, bam!

The details of the petition has been made public. It basically claims the facility and the two named defendants failed to take ordinary precautions and care re: protecting vulnerable patients against C-19.

Speaking of that...the latest numbers across the state, with the 2,300+ deaths total, show that just over 900 of those deaths were elderly patients in nursing home and assisted living facilities. I actually expected that number to be a little higher. That still leaves over 1,400 deaths of "others" who were not among the most vulnerable. Although, most of those did have pre-existing medical conditions that greatly contributed to their deaths.

My daughter just reminded me she interned at that facility when she was earning her license for CNA, back a few years ago. I remember now her telling me how frustrating it was trying to get the staff to respond to requests for help on behalf of patients. When her internship was met and she was licensed that facility offered her a fulltime position. She declined opting to accept an offer from another facility.

And she just shook her head in disgust reading the complaint.

[Guisslapp]

Oh, and it would be easy for the coroner to label a hospice patient "death by China Virus". Unless the family balked on the cause of death, who cares? The death tally needs to be as high as possible to make the "pandemic" appear lethal and not a government over reaction.

So what incentive does the coroner have to label the death a COVID death if it was not?

Coroners want the pandemic to look worse than it is?

I don’t follow the logic of this ever evolving conspiracy theory.

[HogDawg]

1. Why would that apply to hospice where patients agree not to receive life-sustaining treatments for disease.

2. As I have stated multiple times and even your FoxNews article acknowledges, you guys are accusing doctors and hospitals of fraud. Fine if you regally believe doctors are unethical, but even if you think that you can’t surely thing that they would risk the criminal penalties with Medicare fraud for a 20 percent premium.

Is the bolded part a joke? YES! Of course, I am accusing SOME OF THEM of unethical and illegal practices.

Question:

- Is it unethical or illegal for Doctors in Louisiana to over prescribe medicines? This happens all the time. And I've had a front row view of this with friends/relatives

- Is it unethical or illegal for Doctors to recommend prescription medicines that they receive financial kickbacks for prescribing --or financial incentives to sell-- in their practice? I know for a fact this happens.

- Is it unethical or illegal for a male doctor to have sex with a female nurse in the storage room or patient room of a major hospital in Louisiana WHILE ON DUTY? I'm guessing, yes! I'm gonna also guess that the Hippo oath also applies here too. And yet, I know of one doctor in Louisiana that has done this numerous times in the past.

I only mention these scenarios to point out the absurdity in saying, "Oh, he won't check the box as a Covid death when it really wasn't because, 1) he's a doctor, and 2) he took a Hippocratic oath." That's truly laughable.

You need to lose the "God Complex" you have for doctors. Doctors are just people too. Granted, most doctors are REALLY GOOD people, and great professionals. But if you think there aren't some stinkers out there in the medical practice world --just like there are in any other kind of business-- you're sadly mistaken.

[Guisslapp]

I don’t have a god complex view of doctors, but I don’t think they want to risk jail time for a 20 percent premium.

[HogDawg]

I don’t have a god complex view of doctors, but I don’t think..........

FIFY.

[dawg80]

May 15

33,837 cases 2,382 deaths testing rate at 13.4%

1,091 in hosp 132 on vents

May 16

34,117 cases 2413 deaths testing rate at 13.1%

1,028 in hosp 123 on vents

[PawDawg]

So what incentive does the coroner have to label the death a COVID death if it was not?

Coroners want the pandemic to look worse than it is?

I don’t follow the logic of this ever evolving conspiracy theory.

The coroner announces what the doctors (really the nurse on duty) tells them the chart says.

The logic is that it's a money grab at the very least.