Doctors blast Trump for pushing conspiracy theory on COVID-19 death count
Doctors and health professionals are slamming President Donald Trump and his White House advisors for continuing to push a conspiracy theory that hospitals are over-classifying COVID-19 deaths for money.
At a campaign rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin on Saturday, Trump told his supporters that “doctors get more money and hospitals get more money” if they say people died from COVID-19 rather than their comorbidity — a conspiracy theory that has been debunked — as the president pressed his case that the United States is “rounding the turn” on the pandemic, despite public health officials stressing repeatedly that the opposite is true.
On social media, doctors hit back at the claim from the president, blasting the baseless allegation that medical professionals are coding more deaths as due to COVID-19 for financial gain.
“For healthcare workers, it’s really exhausting to have a president constantly working against us — instead of with us — in the middle of a pandemic,” Dr. Craig Spencer, the Director of Global Health in Emergency Medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, wrote.
The New York doctor added that health care workers are “working nonstop, often without adequate PPE, because this administration failed.”
Here the president falsely claims frontline healthcare workers are profiting by claiming false #COVID19 diagnoses.
In reality, they are working nonstop, often without adequate PPE, because this administration failed.
To date, more than 1,700 have died.pic.twitter.com/vraCBgE1m8
— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) October 25, 2020
The American College of Emergency Physicians issued a statement rebutting Trump’s claim, calling it “reckless and false” that doctors are over-counting deaths related to COVID-19.
“To imply that emergency physicians would inflate the number of deaths from this pandemic to gain financially is offensive, especially as many are actually under unprecedented financial strain as they continue to bear the brunt of COVID-19,” the group wrote. “These baseless claims not only do a disservice to our health care heroes but promulgate the dangerous wave of misinformation which continues to hinder our nation’s efforts to get the pandemic under control and allow our nation to return to normalcy.”
In rebutting the president’s claim, doctors shared what working on the front lines during the pandemic has been like for them.
For the first time ever, last spring I was scared to go to work. I was scared of being infected, infecting my family, of what was happening to my patients and whether hospitals had the capacity to care for them.
This is what HCWs are concerned about, not cheating the system. https://t.co/bSxwnoYOeX
— uché blackstock, md (@uche_blackstock) October 25, 2020
As someone whose job as a county-wide effort includes reviewing every potential #COVID19 death in the city (hospital or otherwise) to ensure proper certification of death, I agree that this conspiracy theory is baseless. Don’t believe the lies. https://t.co/psRIVwqAMI
— Nicole R. Jackson, MD, MPH (@NicoleJacksonMD) October 25, 2020
Donald I get paid the same either way—though some damn hazard pay would be effin’ nice.
Also, unlike some people, I pay my taxes. https://t.co/ymct4SK0uc
— Jeremy Faust MD MS (ER physician) (@jeremyfaust) October 25, 2020
.@realDonaldTrump: I haven’t practiced since March b/c doing so consumes PPE that is needed in the ICU and emergency room. No paycheck since then.
Instead of lying about doctors trying to make money, why don’t you @getusppe?#WearAMask #VoteHealth
— Jorge A. Caballero, MD (@DataDrivenMD) October 25, 2020
Reality is:
-many of us buy our own PPE bc hospitals don’t have supply for all
– frontline is working with less staff bc of hospital furloughs/layoffs/decreased hours due to loss of revenue from OR/offices
– we are exhausted by saving lives of preventable COVIDCc: @meganranney https://t.co/S1QB4kZCBr
— Priya Mammen (@PEMammen) October 25, 2020
“[To be honest] most of us took pay cuts,” Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency room physician and director of the Brown Lifespan Center for Digital Health, wrote.
Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, didn’t mince words.
“This is crap,” he wrote of the conspiracy theory pushed by the president. “Everyone knows it.”
In a thread on Twitter, he laid out in detail the debunking of the theory, blasting Trump for continuing to peddle it.
“While doctors and nurses are dying on the front lines, our leaders aren’t working to get them protective equipment,” Jha wrote. “Instead, they are falsely accusing our front line providers of fraud. It’s reprehensible.”
President Trump, advisor @SWAtlasHoover arguing there’s lot of false coding of COVID
This is junk news
Like junk food, junk news tastes good but has no nutritional value
So what are the facts?
Don’t hospitals get more $ for COVID?
Thread on hospital billing, COVID, and fraud
— Ashish K. Jha (@ashishkjha) October 25, 2020
So what happened in COVID era?
Cares Act gives hospitals a 20% bump (to about $9600 – 13K) if pneumonia is from COVID
Additional $1600 – $2200 for a typical COVID pneumonia patient
To get this bump, hospitals must document that patient is COVID positive
3/n
— Ashish K. Jha (@ashishkjha) October 25, 2020
But may be extra $2K might lead hospitals to test their pneumonia patients for COVID?
Actually, even without incentives, any hospitalized patient with pneumonia today will get tested for SARS-CoV2
And if positive, they have COVID
Which gets us to another trope….
5/n
— Ashish K. Jha (@ashishkjha) October 25, 2020
More nonsense
There is no higher reimbursement that I can find for car accident victims who are COVID+.
And if you bill these patients as COVID pneumonia, that’s fraud
This is Facebook junk
Why did Congress, President enact a law that gives hospitals extra $ for COVID?
7/n
— Ashish K. Jha (@ashishkjha) October 25, 2020
What about stories of $40K for a COVID death?
That’s MS-DRG 207: pneumonia patient who spends >4 days in ICU on ventilator
Without COVID, Medicare pays about $35K. With COVID, about 40K
Again, doctors aren’t taking random deaths, calling them COVID deaths
That’s fraud
9/10
— Ashish K. Jha (@ashishkjha) October 25, 2020
So lets ignore the noise and misinformation about COVID billing, etc.
While doctors and nurses are dying on the front lines,
our leaders aren’t working to get them protective equipment
Instead, they are falsely accusing our front line providers of fraud
Its reprehensible
— Ashish K. Jha (@ashishkjha) October 25, 2020
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Get Boston.com’s e-mail alerts:
Sign up and receive coronavirus news and breaking updates, from our newsroom to your inbox.
This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Boston magazine can be found here.
