Question: Who pays for Covid care?

[albacore]

Not everybody has insurance, and Covid care... for those who survive and those who don't... is VERY expensive.

Medicaid? Isn't there application/qualification stuff? Wouldn't the hospitals be buried in paperwork... as well as the sick and the dead?

The hospitals can't suck up that kind of expense...

[dalton99a]

1. Hospital Bills for Uninsured COVID Patients Are Covered, but No One Tells Them

https://khn.org/news/hospital-bills-for-uninsured-covid-patients-are-covered-but-no-one-tells-them/
Hospital Bills for Uninsured COVID Patients Are Covered, but No One Tells Them
By Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio
October 29, 2020

...

TriStar, like most major health systems, participates in a program through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in which uninsured patients with COVID-19 have their bills covered. It was set up through the pandemic relief legislation known as the CARES Act.

But TriStar doesn’t tell its patients that upfront. Neither do other hospitals or national health systems contacted by WPLN News. There’s no requirement to, which is one of the program’s shortcomings, said Jennifer Tolbert of KFF, who studies uninsured patients. (KHN is an editorially independent program of KFF.)

“This is obviously a great concern to most uninsured patients,” Tolbert said. Her research finds that people without insurance often avoid care because of the bill or the threat of the bill, even though they might qualify for any number of programs if they asked enough questions.

Tolbert said the problem with the COVID-19 uninsured program is that even doctors don’t always know how it works or that the program exists.

....

[albacore]

2. Thanks...looks like - as with all medical stuff - you have to be your own strong advocate. nt