By Robert I. Field and Anthony W. Orlando
The latest wave of COVID cases and hospitalizations has raised concerns about the financial resilience of many hospitals in the United States. Throughout the pandemic, we have witnessed shortages of medical supplies, exhaustion of frontline workers, and the overflow of patients beyond the physical capacity of hospital beds and buildings. Now, after nearly two years of repeated COVID surges, there is a real danger that some institutions might run so low on funding that they will need to downsize or close altogether.
Large hospitals in metropolitan areas have, for the most part, weathered the storm. Ample financial resources enabled them to survive with fewer lucrative elective procedures and sudden overwhelming demand for less profitable intensive care for COVID patients. But in many parts of the country, especially rural regions, smaller hospitals lack such financial cushions. For them, COVID could be an existential threat.