Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[lazyboy97o]

I’m surprised people wouldn’t think these large healthcare corporations would commit fraud. Most of them have been investigated and fined for Medicare fraud in the past. Its out there for the public to see.
Im not saying any fraud was committed during Covid, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me.

I’m going to start accusing nurses of doing something illegal that is not part of their job.

My friend’s cousin’s sister’s husband’s brother told me that when you pay a hospital bill the nurses make a copy of your credit card so they can buy stuff for themselves with it.

 

[GoofGoof]

Thanks for tracking that. It looks like this week FL is supposed to receive 889,700 doses of Pfizer and Moderna combined (444,850 series worth) and 175,000 Johnson & Johnson. Almost 620,000 people in FL should be able to be added to the "people vaccinated" total this week (2.86% of the population).

Good times

As soon as the CDC or Bloomberg update their numbers to include yesterday I will pull together a summary of where we stand nationally as of end of Feb and what the projections look like for the rest of March. I’m really starting to think we could be through 65+, 16-64 with health conditions and essential workers by sometime in early April. Remember that those people don’t all need both shots to start the general public on shot 1. I think it’s coming sooner than anticipated by some people.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Good times

As soon as the CDC or Bloomberg update their numbers to include yesterday I will pull together a summary of where we stand nationally as of end of Feb and what the projections look like for the rest of March. I’m really starting to think we could be through 65+, 16-64 with health conditions and essential workers by sometime in early April. Remember that those people don’t all need both shots to start the general public on shot 1. I think it’s coming sooner than anticipated by some people.

 

[SpectroMagician]

If you are so much of a Karen that you complained about people sitting at their own table without a mask then you are a total loser. Please do not go to Disney if you are anywhere near that afraid of the virus.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

If you are so much of a Karen that you complained about people sitting at their own table without a mask then you are a total loser. Please do not go to Disney if you are anywhere near that afraid of the virus.

Did that happen?

 

[Miss Bella]

To me, the issue is primarily the lack of any credible evidence to support such a conspiracy theory (particularly when there is evidence from the CDC's excess death count that suggests that the COVID-19 death tally has not been inflated). Also, it is unlikely that hospitals nationwide are all deciding to commit Medicare fraud and nobody - even in DeSantis-led Florida - is catching on to it outside of people posting on the internet.

I’m not saying there’s any fraud related to Covid. I have no way of knowing that I just know some these large health companies that own hospitals all over the country arent strangers to shady behavior.
It’s the DOJ that investigates and fines them. Most of the time tipped off by a whistleblower in the company. It’s not something a Governor would be keeping tabs on.

 

[Miss Bella]

I’m going to start accusing nurses of doing something illegal that is not part of their job.

My friend’s cousin’s sister’s husband’s brother told me that when you pay a hospital bill the nurses make a copy of your credit card so they can buy stuff for themselves with it.

Nurses aren’t involved in any aspect of billing. We only know when the company gets fined because they have to disclose it to their employees.

 

[mmascari]

I’m surprised people wouldn’t think these large healthcare corporations would commit fraud. Most of them have been investigated and fined for Medicare fraud in the past. Its out there for the public to see.
Im not saying any fraud was committed during Covid, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me.

I think its a question about impact.

Most people talking about hospital COVID fraud are using it to say that COVID deaths aren't as bad as reported. Certainly, that's how others are reading those statements.

Likewise people saying there isn't fraud aren't really claiming there is zero, none, nada, absolutely no fraud at all. They're saying any fraud, or honest mistakes too, are so small compared to the total impact to not matter at all. Especially with the honest mistake level that should go both ways and largely net out.

If there were 10,000 cases of fraud across all hospital systems, it wouldn't matter. 10,000/500,000 = 2%. If there were 1,000 all at a single institution, where it was a sizeable percentage, I like to hope that would stand out and be caught. The same way other Medicare fraud is caught when an institution stands out from it's peers.

Those two things combined read as the first group saying there is such widespread fraud across all hospitals that its a material difference in deaths and fraud is so widespread that no one institution stands out. That they've successfully moved the baseline number as a group so none stand out. Along with that everything else in world is much deadlier this year to explain the yearly increase in deaths independent of cause.

If that's not what someone is trying to say, that's still how others are reading it.

 

[Touchdown]

No, it is not the truth that being put on a ventilator is “practically a death sentence”. It’s talk like that that leads people to think that ventilators are responsible for killing people rather than saving them. My father is currently on a ventilator and owes his life to it. Yes, we realise he may not live—the doctors have made that absolutely clear to us—but without the ventilator, he would most certainly have died.

When I told an acquaintance of mine about my father’s situation, she said, “Oh, those things kill people, and hospitals only use them to make money.” I couldn’t believe that an otherwise educated and rational person could think such a thing, much less say it, but she’s clearly picking up on the kind of alarmist talk that conflates correlation with causation.

The words we choose and use matter.

Ventilators can kill people, they are very powerful machines that work by pressurizing lungs to levels that are outside of normal physiologic range. That can injure lungs, particularly stiff lungs suffering with Covid. Not to mention, they will (eventually, no matter what we do, the goal is to delay this happening and get someone of the vent before it happens) cause a ventilator associated pneumonia. Finally, in order for a body to tolerate a plastic tube stuck down your throat and pressure of the air in your lungs we need to sedate people to the point where they lay in bed all day, with muscles waiting away, and putting that person at risk for pressure ulcers. On average, for everyday a person is ventilated it will take one week to recover back to normal. It’s a horrible situation, and I’m sorry your father is going through this. I truely hope he beats the odds

However, we only resort to them when there is no other option to keep a person alive and it’s not done to make more money, it’s a last attempt to save a life. The mortality rate of anyone on one is not good, and I was trying to highlight that even compared to that bad mortality rate, with Covid it’s significantly worse, because of that physicians try every means necessary to avoid it because we know that if we use it, there’s a high likelihood that person will not make it and we only do it when we are certain they won’t survive without it.

 

[danlb_2000]

My point is many deaths that really weren’t caused by Covid were labeled as such. Pretty much was told so by the director of the third largest hospital in my state

The number of deaths over the average for last year is a pretty close match to the number of reported COVID deaths. If a significant number of deaths were being mis-reported as COVID deaths, then what actually caused those deaths?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Nurses aren’t involved in any aspect of billing. We only know when the company gets fined because they have to disclose it to their employees.

Exactly. And the hospital administration isn’t filling out death certificates.

 

[Touchdown]

I know the survival rate once you are a ventilator is not great, but that statement implies it's the fault of the ventilator. Is the ventilator a risky treatment, or is it just that if a person is being put on a vent they are so sick that they probably would not have good outcome either way?

It’s a combination of both.

 

[LittleBuford]

However, we only resort to them when there is no other option to keep a person alive and it’s not done to make more money, it’s a last attempt to save a life.

This is the key point, and one that gets lost or undermined when you refer to ventilators as death sentences.

I have nothing more to say on the issue.

 

[Touchdown]

This is the key point, and one that gets lost or undermined when you refer to ventilators as death sentences.

I have nothing more to say on the issue.

Glad I could clarify and sorry about the misunderstanding.

 

[Miss Bella]

I think its a question about impact.

Most people talking about hospital COVID fraud are using it to say that COVID deaths aren't as bad as reported. Certainly, that's how others are reading those statements.

Likewise people saying there isn't fraud aren't really claiming there is zero, none, nada, absolutely no fraud at all. They're saying any fraud, or honest mistakes too, are so small compared to the total impact to not matter at all. Especially with the honest mistake level that should go both ways and largely net out.

If there were 10,000 cases of fraud across all hospital systems, it wouldn't matter. 10,000/500,000 = 2%. If there were 1,000 all at a single institution, where it was a sizeable percentage, I like to hope that would stand out and be caught. The same way other Medicare fraud is caught when an institution stands out from it's peers.

Those two things combined read as the first group saying there is such widespread fraud across all hospitals that its a material difference in deaths and fraud is so widespread that no one institution stands out. That they've successfully moved the baseline number as a group so none stand out. Along with that everything else in world is much deadlier this year to explain the yearly increase in deaths independent of cause.

If that's not what someone is trying to say, that's still how others are reading it.

Fraud or no fraud it’s not something we will know about for years.

 

[danlb_2000]

It’s a combination of both.

Thanks, just saw your longer post answering the question.

 

[Miss Bella]

Exactly. And the hospital administration isn’t filling out death certificates.

True, but I’ve seen a lot of questionable admissions.

 

[havoc315]

Fraud or no fraud it’s not something we will know about for years.

Is LUVMCO an axe murderer or not an axe murderer? It's not something we will know about for years.

There is absolutely no evidence of any systematic fraud by the hospital systems in mis-reporting Covid. None, whatsoever. Not a shred.

 

[havoc315]

True, but I’ve seen a lot of questionable admissions.

What are your medical credentials or medical expertise in determining whether an admission is proper?

 

[havoc315]

Ventilators can kill people, they are very powerful machines that work by pressurizing lungs to levels that are outside of normal physiologic range. That can injure lungs, particularly stiff lungs suffering with Covid. Not to mention, they will (eventually, no matter what we do, the goal is to delay this happening and get someone of the vent before it happens) cause a ventilator associated pneumonia. Finally, in order for a body to tolerate a plastic tube stuck down your throat and pressure of the air in your lungs we need to sedate people to the point where they lay in bed all day, with muscles waiting away, and putting that person at risk for pressure ulcers. On average, for everyday a person is ventilated it will take one week to recover back to normal. It’s a horrible situation, and I’m sorry your father is going through this. I truely hope he beats the odds

However, we only resort to them when there is no other option to keep a person alive and it’s not done to make more money, it’s a last attempt to save a life. The mortality rate of anyone on one is not good, and I was trying to highlight that even compared to that bad mortality rate, with Covid it’s significantly worse, because of that physicians try every means necessary to avoid it because we know that if we use it, there’s a high likelihood that person will not make it and we only do it when we are certain they won’t survive without it.

I've spoken to several NYC specialists who were actively treating Covid at the epicenter since the early days of the pandemic.

The consensus is they over-used intubation and ventilation at the beginning. The understandable thought was that if their oxygen saturation was low, you ventilate them. That's what you do for pneumonia.
But with Covid, there were people recovering from low oxygen after a few days.. while intubating them actually made it harder for them to recover. So survival rates improved with less intubation.
So it became a more fine-line balance of the patients that need intubation and those that don't.