December 4, 2020

Balancing Revenue Generation with Capacity Generation: Case Distribution, Financial Impact and Hospital Capacity Changes from Cancelling or Resuming Elective Surgeries in the US during COVID-19

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Clinical Characteristics and Health Care Setting

Keywords (Tags): health care setting

• A retrospective cohort analysis of elective surgical case distribution, hospital revenue, and ICU bed capacity during COVID-19 found that in a scenario with 5% infection prevalence, cancelling elective procedures decreased ICU overcapacity from 160 to 130%, but such elective surgical cases contribute 78% (1.1 trillion dollars) to inpatient hospital plus outpatient surgical gross revenue per year. Postponement of musculoskeletal, circulatory and digestive elective procedures accounted for the largest loss of gross revenue (33%, $447B). Universal mask wearing in all public locations would help avoid overcapacity in all states.

Tonna et al. (Dec 3, 2020). Balancing Revenue Generation with Capacity Generation: Case Distribution, Financial Impact and Hospital Capacity Changes from Cancelling or Resuming Elective Surgeries in the US during COVID-19. BMC Health Services Research. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05975-z