The CEO of Kaleida Health in Buffalo, N.Y., said hospitals will likely need a bailout due to COVID-19, according to local news station WGRZ.
Kaleida Health President and CEO Jody Lomeo highlighted parallels between hospitals and U.S. automakers during the Great Recession.
"I would think there's gonna have to be some reimbursement on some level and we've seen some of that already with the [recent federal] stimulus bill. We're gonna need support," he told WGRZ. He added that his health system "can survive for a couple of months; after that I would be really nervous."
While federal stimulus funds have begun flowing to hospitals nationwide, hospital CEOs are blasting HHS' decision to distribute the first $30 billion in emergency funding based on Medicare fee-for-service revenue. HHS said April 10 it would allocate money to hospitals and providers based on their historical share of revenue from the Medicare program, rather than the burden caused by the coronavirus or number of uninsured patients treated.