its crazy that covid is still going around.

[C_Hallbert]

I left something important out of my posts on the COVID 19 Pandemic (Panic). The reaction to the threats posed by COVID 19 by our Government Agencies and in nearly every level of Federal, State and Local Governments appeared to be on a level that might be justified during war or if we were actually faced with a real existential threat. It had the overall effect of enabling all levels of government across our nation to organize, communicate measures intended to mediate a threat and to condition our population to respond to official commands. The government’s response went so far as to utilize trusted media sources and other publicly.recognized influencers to disseminate information to our public using methods traditionally designed for Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operations. The narratives were consistent and repeated often through all channels. Mass News Media Organizations were working in concert with Government Agencies.

The most despicable behavior, in my opinion, was exhibited by our Health Care Community. State Heathcare Agencies, major Heathcare Organizations, Hospitals, Clinics and many Private Medical Practices all bent their knees without question. Dissenting professionals were censured or fired. Big Brother was….In the House! Organizations. Worst of all, medical organizations and practitioners began to protect themselves first and treated their patients as if they were a lower class of untouchables. We will never know how many lives were lost or permanently impacted by the negligence and self serving behavior displayed by so many in our trusted healthcare system due to delays in testing, diagnoses, and treatments. In my opinion, somewhere the Hippocratic Oath was replaced with the ‘Hypocritic’ Oath and it will never be the same again.

Another issue. Traditionally, the Peer Review Process in science and medicine provided a valuable and effective method for attempting to validate the results published from scientific studies. However, during my life I’ve witnessed the integrity of this institution deteriorate due to pressure and influence from special interests tied to the sources of funding for the studies themselves. For me, the uncertainty in the reliability of the Peer Review Process started becoming evident in the Environmental Sciences and it spread to Medicine during the COVID 19 debacle……

Hmmm…..
After reading my posts on the subject at hand, It seems that I was so intent on flogging the guilty parties that I left out a very important fact: many good people died prematurely from COVID 19. It was especially dangerous to those with compromising medical conditions such as diabetes. old age, obesity and/or certain unforeseen inherited weaknesses in their immune systems, or inherent in their organisms, that made them vulnerable to potentially lethal properties of the COVID 19 Virus…., or from the Vaccines. However, for most people, the affects of this pathogen were very similar to those produced by strains of the Influenza Virus. We aging folks and those who suffer from serious medical condition, like trees in the forest, may be blown down in the next great storm. I don’t live my life trembling in fear of that next storm. It will be nature at its usual work; and that’s just the way it is. I live my life best I can and enjoy my time with those I love. Oh, and I play Call of Duty, Modern Warfare II on my xBox when I have the time. This is “RedWolf2279’, out…..

 

[ronny]

C_Hallbert, be careful. And, thanks, again!

 

[avtomatkalashnikov47]

It's a scary thing when you cant trust dr's I guess...

What I mean is, it could have been the flu for all I know.
Felt about the same symptom wise.

I have been told I have had covid 3-4x now.

I'm sure if there is some covid death counter for some purpose, they probably put my grandpa on there which is dumb. Because as I said, it was more primarily to do with the cancer, & his old age. He had covid once already I know for a fact and got over it.

I heard the more "covid related" deaths a place has, like a hospital then the more of some government funding or $ they get from some program.

 

[C_Hallbert]

It's a scary thing when you cant trust dr's I guess...

What I mean is, it could have been the flu for all I know.
Felt about the same symptom wise.

I have been told I have had covid 3-4x now.

I'm sure if there is some covid death counter for some purpose, they probably put my grandpa on there which is dumb. Because as I said, it was more primarily to do with the cancer, & his old age. He had covid once already I know for a fact and got over it.

I heard the more "covid related" deaths a place has, like a hospital then the more of some government funding or $ they get from some program.

I wouldn’t say that you can’t trust doctors. Many are dedicated, honest and excellent professionals. There are more problems caused by institutional policies that reflect government standards and guidelines, limitations on diagnostic procedures and interventions arbitrarily imposed by both government and corporate insurance agencies, state regulations and physician liability insurance companies. A doctor has to work in a tangled web of bureaucratic interference when he treats a patient. They never should have surrendered their autonomy; but, resisting the competing forces intent on controlling them required organization and agreement, and it’s easier to teach cats to dance. Controlling forces have taken advantage of their independence (divided populations are easier to conquer).

You are correct regarding the increased reimbursement from Medicare for charges related to a diagnosis of COVID19. If I recall, it was around $16,000. This, of course, motivated Hospital Administrations to encourage diagnoses of COVID 19 on every possible patient.

I still trust physicians as a group, but I’m incredulous concerning the integrity of them as individuals. While they’re evaluating me, I’m evaluating them…..

 

[okcBob]

It's a scary thing when you cant trust dr's I guess...

What I mean is, it could have been the flu for all I know.
Felt about the same symptom wise.

I have been told I have had covid 3-4x now.

I'm sure if there is some covid death counter for some purpose, they probably put my grandpa on there which is dumb. Because as I said, it was more primarily to do with the cancer, & his old age. He had covid once already I know for a fact and got over it.

I heard the more "covid related" deaths a place has, like a hospital then the more of some government funding or $ they get from some program.

No, hospitals didn’t get extra funding for a Covid related death. Also, Medicare did not make standard, one-size-fits-all payments to hospitals for patients admitted with COVID. Hospitals received a 20% enhanced payment for additional treatments related to Covid. It required a lab positive Covid test to be eligible & gave extra $ for Covid related treatments. This program ended last year I think, and was paid by the CARES act I believe.
BTW it’s not true that hospitals make more Medicare $, the longer the patient stays admitted. Payment is based on a case mix calculation (CMI) which can change during the hospitalization.
Hospitals also lose $ on Medicare admissions overall. They have to treat the whole patient admission based on that one lump sum, based on diagnosis & acuity formula (CMI, DRG, GMLOS). If the Medicare reimbursement for a Covid admission is 20k (which includes the 20% Covid payment) and the cost to the hospital to treat the patient is 19k, the hospital makes 1k on the admission. If the patient lingers on the vent in icu for weeks, no more $from Medicare to cover the cost .
This is why hospitals hire huge discharge planning departments whose goal is to discharge the patient as soon as the doc says the patient is medically ready for discharge. The longer the patient stays admitted, the more $ the hospital loses.

 

[avtomatkalashnikov47]

This reminds me of all the jokes people were making about people dying in strange random ways and then saying the cause of death was covid.
Similar to the Hillary Clinton jokes that were going around about how everybody that gets to close to the Clinton's ends up offing themselves.

Example- corpse found with bullet wound to the back of the head.
Cause of death - covid.

Or suicide if it's a joke related to the Clinton's.

 

[Poke78]

I wouldn’t say that you can’t trust doctors. Many are dedicated, honest and excellent professionals. There are more problems caused by institutional policies that reflect government standards and guidelines, limitations on diagnostic procedures and interventions arbitrarily imposed by both government and corporate insurance agencies, state regulations and physician liability insurance companies. A doctor has to work in a tangled web of bureaucratic interference when he treats a patient. They never should have surrendered their autonomy; but, resisting the competing forces intent on controlling them required organization and agreement, and it’s easier to teach cats to dance. Controlling forces have taken advantage of their independence (divided populations are easier to conquer).

You are correct regarding the increased reimbursement from Medicare for charges related to a diagnosis of COVID19. If I recall, it was around $16,000. This, of course, motivated Hospital Administrations to encourage diagnoses of COVID 19 on every possible patient.

I still trust physicians as a group, but I’m incredulous concerning the integrity of them as individuals. While they’re evaluating me, I’m evaluating them…..

We are 2 generations removed from the doctors who had the opportunity to resist surrendering their autonomy. It has only been downhill since then. As far as integrity is concerned, it’s essentially gone for most of the profession, IMO, due to all the forces you’ve noted. Perhaps a truly independent practice that accepts no insurance might have a shot at no compromise medicine.

 

[Jason Freeland]

I only speak for myself and my wife. When the coronavirus chimera was announced, I did a lot of reading. My wife has been an RN since 1981, and I worked 39 years as a Respiratory Therapist. We saw numerous epidemics course through our population. In some years, influenzas took heavy tolls and stressed the capacity of our facilities, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) epidemics spiked in among young children. Then there was Methicillin Resistant Staff aureus (MRSA); and if the old tuberculosis wasn’t bad enough, Multi-drug Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDRTB), Oh, let’s no forget the Human Immune Virus (HIV), either. Heathcare professionals accept a calculated risk when they choose their careers.

I was the Director of Respiratory Care Services at McAlester Regional Health Center for 24 years, and most of this time I sat on the Infection Control and Medicine Committees. I became very familiar with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) both as a reference for current practices related to the diagnoses and treatment of communicable diseases as well as recommended infection control guidelines and isolation practices. I had to update and incorporate their recommendations into our policies and procedures. I kept up to date with their monthly reports which identified the location of new and current cases of epidemic infectious diseases; and mortality rates for all causes of death. I was retired, but after reports of coronavirus started coming in, I started looking at the CDC Reports, again.

Please understand, I never feared the COVID Pandemic. I have a somewhat fatalistic attitude towards life which is necessary for anyone who works in a hazardous environment. Also, I’ve seen more people of all ages pass from this life than most physicians and nurses with the exception of E.R. Doctors and Nurses employed in the various high acuity specialty units like ICU, Burn Centers, etc. I understand implicitly that life on this world is a temporary condition.

Early on in 2020, I started seeing inconsistencies in CDC Mortality Rates. Deaths from Influenza, Pneumococcus Pneumonia (in the aged), Cancers etc. dropped drastically. All deaths appeared to be consigned to COVID and I became incredulous. I looked into the mechanism being used to impart immunity (they were calling it a vaccination); but, in fact, it was genetic modification. They were using a method of cloaking mRNA (containing a blueprint which was intended to penetrate the cell nucleus and signal our DNA to program human cells to manufacture the spike proteins that were on the surfaces of the COVID 19 Virus with the intention that our own immune systems would begin to recognize these foreign proteins and generate antibodies to combat them so that if our organisms were actually exposed to real corona viruses, our immune systems would be primed to create the necessary antibodies to fight the viruses. That’s my understanding. This method for providing immunity did not match the definition for a vaccine, so they changed the definition. I became more incredulous. Traditional vaccines were made using dead, or proteins from dead viruses, or attenuated viruses (near dead and unable to reproduce), both of which exposed healthy immune systems to the specific viral antigens and triggered the creation of antibodies and stored the genetic information needed to recognize the specific viral antigens and quickly activate the appropriate immune response.Note- a traditional method for vaccination against COVID was developed, put in production and placed in use in India, but they were blocked from selling it to the rest of the world by the World Health Organization (WHO). Hmmmm…..

When expert researchers, physicians and some of the scientists who had worked to develop this new method to impart immunity criticized or warned that this technology had not been sufficiently tested to be safe, they were discredited or silenced by denying them from speaking in the media or in public forums. Reports of injuries and deaths due to the effects of the COVID Vaccines were declared to be misinformation.

Our government disgracefully authorized the premature release of the COVID Vaccines and used coercion and control of News Media Organizations to attempt to force our citizens to accept these vaccines. Worse yet, was the fact that our medical community complied without question and they literally persecuted physicians who protested or refused to comply. In my opinion, the response of our government to this exaggerated emergency harkensthe approaching vanguard of tyranny.

Final note- I refused to be vaccinated and my wife followed my lead. When the VA called to about my vaccination status, I replied that they could put me against a wall and shoot me first! I was exposed directly to Coronavirus in January 2020 at my son’s home. He and his wife and two children caught it and were ill for various lengths of time, but they were young and healthy. My best friend from McAlester, OK died with it, but he was severely compromised by Inulin Dependent Diabetes Type One and was on renal dialysis. Also, he was administered a regimen of Remdesivir and that is another whole story. For myself, I trusted the millions of years of evolution that preceded my current immune system, and my 39 years of exposure to the host of other diseases and my immune system’s prior success to be my best chance of survival…..

If I made any technical errors in my post, apologies. It’s late, I’m tired and I’m not going to review my old notes, but it’s accuracy is pretty close.
r

Good post and yes we RTs see more death than just about anyone. You have to be having a truly bad day to see us in the first place and we go to ALL the codes in the hospital. More than once I had to watch up to 4 people a shift pass through the veil. I shudder at the thought of how many code sheets my name is on.

 

[Jason Freeland]

No, hospitals didn’t get extra funding for a Covid related death. Also, Medicare did not make standard, one-size-fits-all payments to hospitals for patients admitted with COVID. Hospitals received a 20% enhanced payment for additional treatments related to Covid. It required a lab positive Covid test to be eligible & gave extra $ for Covid related treatments. This program ended last year I think, and was paid by the CARES act I believe.
BTW it’s not true that hospitals make more Medicare $, the longer the patient stays admitted. Payment is based on a case mix calculation (CMI) which can change during the hospitalization.
Hospitals also lose $ on Medicare admissions overall. They have to treat the whole patient admission based on that one lump sum, based on diagnosis & acuity formula (CMI, DRG, GMLOS). If the Medicare reimbursement for a Covid admission is 20k (which includes the 20% Covid payment) and the cost to the hospital to treat the patient is 19k, the hospital makes 1k on the admission. If the patient lingers on the vent in icu for weeks, no more $from Medicare to cover the cost .
This is why hospitals hire huge discharge planning departments whose goal is to discharge the patient as soon as the doc says the patient is medically ready for discharge. The longer the patient stays admitted, the more $ the hospital loses.

And why I have the current job I do. One of my duties is to make sure that all codes are captured, which has a by product of helping the DRG, GMLOS and the CMI.

 

[SlugSlinger]

No, hospitals didn’t get extra funding for a Covid related death. Also, Medicare did not make standard, one-size-fits-all payments to hospitals for patients admitted with COVID. Hospitals received a 20% enhanced payment for additional treatments related to Covid. It required a lab positive Covid test to be eligible & gave extra $ for Covid related treatments. This program ended last year I think, and was paid by the CARES act I believe.
BTW it’s not true that hospitals make more Medicare $, the longer the patient stays admitted. Payment is based on a case mix calculation (CMI) which can change during the hospitalization.
Hospitals also lose $ on Medicare admissions overall. They have to treat the whole patient admission based on that one lump sum, based on diagnosis & acuity formula (CMI, DRG, GMLOS). If the Medicare reimbursement for a Covid admission is 20k (which includes the 20% Covid payment) and the cost to the hospital to treat the patient is 19k, the hospital makes 1k on the admission. If the patient lingers on the vent in icu for weeks, no more $from Medicare to cover the cost .
This is why hospitals hire huge discharge planning departments whose goal is to discharge the patient as soon as the doc says the patient is medically ready for discharge. The longer the patient stays admitted, the more $ the hospital loses.

In fact hospitals did get extra funding for COVID. I interviewed an individual last week, that is a high level systems and finance professional (cfo office level) at a Tulsa hospital for a position in my group. In part, as an answer to an interview question about handling new and difficult to deal with situations, I was told, this hospital received a prepayment check of $10M from the federal government to help manage the COVID patients.
Very strict instructions were given and the Covid costs were to be tracked and this money was to be used for Covid related incidents only. The interviewee had to build a system to manage, track and report COVID related expenses.

To me, that’s makes for incentive to increase Covid related injuries and costs.


Where is your information coming from?