WSHA Seeks Hospital Information on COVID-19 Financial Impact

WSHA is continuing its efforts to have up-to-date information on the financial impact of the COVID-19 emergency on Washington hospitals. This will be especially important as the state legislature convenes later this year to identify areas of possible savings.  Aggregate results of an initial WSHA survey of member hospitals demonstrate the financial difficulties Washington hospitals are facing even with the federal relief funding. While most of the federal COVID relief funding for hospitals has been distributed, the federal funding does not cover the losses already incurred by hospitals during the COVID-19 emergency. Moreover, hospitals continue to bear ongoing costs of COVID-19 response and reduced hospital revenues due to disruption of non-emergent care. WSHA will be updating its survey to capture more current costs and losses and again requests a quick turnaround in order to meet the timing deadlines.(Tom Evert, tome@wsha.org)