In mid-March, hospitals suspended “elective” surgeries in order to focus all their resources and energy on COVID-19 patients and the influx of patients they knew would be coming.
“I think the problem arose because people used too broad of a one-size-fits-all approach,” Sharmila Dissanaike, the chair of surgery at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, told HHCN. “If you anticipate a COVID-19 surge, then trying to get some time-sensitive surgery done early … is a better approach than delaying it indefinitely. Not all elective operations are equal, nor are they all truly elective.”
Home health providers are not able to provide as much hands on care as is needed. CMS is also tying their hands when it comes to telehealth. A wound care expert could, via a video call, ascertain if a wound is infected, or needs to dry out or something else. Not being able to be do these telehealth calls put patients at risk of returning to the hospital amid this pandemic, putting them and everyone around them at risk of catching the virus.
“You have agencies being impacted by lack of staff and some of the challenges that go with [procuring] PPE,” Beth Prince, the VP of Revenue Management Services for Corridor, told HHCN. “These agencies are really seeing that impact in every facet of their business.”
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