CDC states only 10,000 patients died DIRECTLY from Covid

Published

http://www.drugawareness.org/breaking-news-from-CDC-on-real-covid-death-figures/

Only 10,000 patient have died directly from contracting COVID19. The rest had  underlying medical conditions.

Have we been wrong in they way we shut down America?  Was this all political BS?

https://wgntv.com/news/coronavirus/new-CDC-report-shows-94-of-covid-19-deaths-in-us-had-underlying-medical-conditions/

10,000 people have died directly because of Covid.  That’s it.  Covid killed them.  
They were perfectly healthy before Covid and they died because of it and nothing else.  These are the 6% Trump is referring

The other 94% died because they had Covid and some other disease process.  Covid and whatever else they had  contributed to their demise.

I agree that Covid kills.  
I haven’t done a death certificate Iin a very long time.  My Derm patients  don’t expire but yes I’ve signed the Certificates.  
 

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Specializes in med surge/tele/step down ICU.

Not sure if this has been mentioned or how it fits in, but I feel that this is worth mentioning. I have worked at the bedside this ENTIRE time. I have taken care of Covid + patients. I have also had MANY physicians tell me they have listed the cause of death of a patient as COVID, even if the pt came in with a CVA or STEMI or some other health issue because it would get the facility the maximum reimbursement for the patient.

 

Has anyone had this same experience?  I think its a fair argument to question the validity of the numbers in general whether they are too hight or too low.

 

 

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

There are specific guidelines for ICD-10 coding  + COVID-19 illness. Utilization review nurses along with medical records staff review the charting to assign appropriate code for illnesses in order to bill and report to insurance companies + government.  WE then get to pester the providers- physicians and NP to clarify documentation if in.complete in order to assign these codes.  Info better be there when chart audited --monies rescinded and can be fined for fraudulent billing otherwise.  Yes there is a higher payment for this diagnosis--just like there is for  ICD10 -- I13.2 Hypertensive heart and chronic kidney disease with heart failure and with stage 5 chronic kidney disease, or end stage renal disease..   Karen

ICD-10-CM Official Coding and Reporting Guidelines

April 1, 2020 through September 30, 2020

Quote

Chapter 1: Certain Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (A00-B99)g. Coronavirus Infections

1) COVID-19 Infections (Infections due to SARS-CoV-2)

a)Code only confirmed cases.  Code only a confirmed diagnosis of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as documented by the provider, documentation of a positive COVID-19 test result, or a presumptive positive COVID-19 test result. For a confirmed diagnosis, assign code U07.1, COVID-19.  This is an exception to the hospital inpatient guideline Section II, H. In this context, “confirmation” does not require documentation of the type of test performed; the provider’s documentation that the individual has COVID-19 is sufficient. Presumptive positive COVID-19 test results should be coded as confirmed. A presumptive positive test result means an individual has tested positive for the virus at a local or state level, but it has not yet been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC confirmation of local and state tests for COVID-19 is no longer required.

If the provider documents "suspected," "possible," "probable," or “inconclusive” COVID-19, do not assign code U07.1.  Assign a code(s) explaining the reason for encounter (such as fever) or Z20.828, Contact with and (suspected) exposure to other viral communicable diseases.

b)Sequencing of codes

When COVID-19 meets the definition of principal diagnosis, code U07.1, COVID-19, should be sequenced first, followed by the appropriate codes for associated manifestations, except in the case of obstetrics patients as indicated in Section . I.C.15.s. for COVID-19 in pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperium.

https://www.CDC.gov/nchs/data/icd/COVID-19-guidelines-final.pdf

Admitted with:

Covid + pneumonia + acute resp failure--- covid still gets coded first.

Uncontolled IDDM  with BS< 500, covid screen positive-asymptomatic, Diabetes gets coded first, covid 2nd.

 

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Specializes in Hospice.
6 hours ago, dalavanj said:

Not sure if this has been mentioned or how it fits in, but I feel that this is worth mentioning. I have worked at the bedside this ENTIRE time. I have taken care of Covid + patients. I have also had MANY physicians tell me they have listed the cause of death of a patient as COVID, even if the pt came in with a CVA or STEMI or some other health issue because it would get the facility the maximum reimbursement for the patient.

 

Has anyone had this same experience?  I think its a fair argument to question the validity of the numbers in general whether they are too hight or too low.

 

 

Thanks, NRSKaren - I read this same post just about verbatim on facebook a couple of months ago. What this poster is describing is called upcoding, which has been illegal for decades.

 

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9 hours ago, FNP2B1 said:

10,000 people have died directly because of Covid.  That’s it.  Covid killed them.  
They were perfectly healthy before Covid and they died because of it and nothing else.  These are the 6% Trump is referring

The other 94% died because they had Covid and some other disease process.  Covid and whatever else they had  contributed to their demise.

I agree that Covid kills.  
I haven’t done a death certificate Iin a very long time.  My Derm patients  don’t expire but yes I’ve signed the Certificates.  
 

Yes. It has been well documented in China, Italy and NYC for several months that COVID tends to kill people who have co-morbidities as opposed to individuals with no co-morbidites. I am a little baffled why this new CDC date is become such as fuss since it really just confirms the data that has already been out there.

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.
11 hours ago, dalavanj said:

Not sure if this has been mentioned or how it fits in, but I feel that this is worth mentioning. I have worked at the bedside this ENTIRE time. I have taken care of Covid + patients. I have also had MANY physicians tell me they have listed the cause of death of a patient as COVID, even if the pt came in with a CVA or STEMI or some other health issue because it would get the facility the maximum reimbursement for the patient.

Has anyone had this same experience?  I think its a fair argument to question the validity of the numbers in general whether they are too hight or too low.

This is illegal. Any physician so ignorant, fatigued, or dishonest as to falsify a death certificate committed a crime. A death certificate is an official document that declares and verifies a person's death for the purposes of national health statistics and homicide cover-up prevention.  Falsifying the document can carry a number of penalties.   

If I knew for certain a medical record was falsified I would report it. Perhaps a brave person with knowledge that this crime has been committed will do so.

Quote

CA Penal Code § 471.5 (2017)  

Any person who alters or modifies the medical record of any person, with fraudulent intent, or who, with fraudulent intent, creates any false medical record, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

https://california.public.law/codes/ca_penal_code_section_471.5

 

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The system rewards hospitals and physicians with premium payments if Covid is listed as the cause of death.  Greed pure and simple.  It is probably inflating the Covid death numbers.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
16 minutes ago, FNP2B1 said:

The system rewards hospitals and physicians with premium payments if Covid is listed as the cause of death.  Greed pure and simple.  It is probably inflating the Covid death numbers.

Sounds like a good argument for single payer health care, eliminating much of the greed from general medicine.  

Are you suggesting that most or many medical professionals who are completing death certificates are corrupted by greed and can't be trusted. Is that what the "probably" means to you?

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1 hour ago, FNP2B1 said:

The system rewards hospitals and physicians with premium payments if Covid is listed as the cause of death.  Greed pure and simple.  It is probably inflating the Covid death numbers.

Most medical and epidemiological professionals around the globe believe that Covid-19 deaths are undercounted, not inflated. You’re definitely in a minority if you think the Covid related mortality is lower than reported. 

I’m sure that greed is a factor in any for-profit enterprise, including healthcare. But greed and possible fudging of cause of death by individual physicians/providers doesn’t explain the excess deaths that we’re seeing in a many different countries as this pandemic sweeps across continents. 

Italy, Spain, Sweden, France, Belgium and the UK all have Covid death rates per 100,000 in roughly the same ballpark as the U.S. Do you think that physicians and hospitals in all those countries are financially compensated at a higher level for writing Covid, as opposed to some other cause of death, on death certificates? 

I have no idea why you think that you’ll have any success selling the narrative that only 10,000 have died ”directly” from a Covid-19 infection, on a nursing forum, of all places. Do you actually think that you have the power to make us doubt our lived experiences? We don’t all work in dermatology you know...

It’s quite obvious when you’ve had patients cared for in ICUs for long periods of time (several weeks), much longer than for example an average influensa patient who usually improves after a couple of days, that your patient died from their Covid infection and not from their diabetes. Yes, the fact that they had a comorbidity made the risk of getting seriously ill much higher, but their diabetes would in all likelihood not have killed the majority of these individuals in the narrow timeframe of March-August of 2020. 
 

 

4 hours ago, egg122 NP said:

Yes. It has been well documented in China, Italy and NYC for several months that COVID tends to kill people who have co-morbidities as opposed to individuals with no co-morbidites. I am a little baffled why this new CDC date is become such as fuss since it really just confirms the data that has already been out there.

I agree. It’s really strange to read threads like this one a nursing forum, isn’t it?

I think it’s only causing a fuss because some individuals are deliberately attempting to twist the narrative to fit their agenda. This thread is in my opinion a prime example of that. It’s trying to give the impression that the only Covid-19 fatality that counts as a Covid death, is one where the person didn’t have any pre-existing conditions, what they call a ”direct” Covid death. That’s just a made-up definition/distinction, with no basis in clinical reality. It’s just daft to claim that an infection can’t be cause of death because an individual has an underlying condition. 

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I have no desire to sell anything to you regarding data.  If you're interested in looking better I can sell you a treatment with my J plasma device.

 I'm reading data from the CDC.  Your experience is your experience and can't be denied or debated.  My experience talking among conservative medical professionals is that as a consensus we believe Covid 19 is over reported.  The false positives from the PCR test are alarming.  Even the NYT full of liberals wrote a piece about it.  This link mentions their analysis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

The majority of deaths around the world are from nursing homes/assisted living facilities.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/05/26/nursing-homes-assisted-living-facilities-0-6-of-the-u-s-population-43-of-u-s-covid-19-deaths/#5db47e1274cd

We killed the economy to save some lives.  We don't know how many people have now died from depression related suicides, physical violence at home, alcoholism and drug abuse because we shut the country down.  To me, this is a case of the cure is worse than the illness. 

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
23 minutes ago, FNP2B1 said:

I have no desire to sell anything to you regarding data.  If you're interested in looking better I can sell you a treatment with my J plasma device.

 I'm reading data from the CDC.  Your experience is your experience and can't be denied or debated.  My experience talking among conservative medical professionals is that as a consensus we believe Covid 19 is over reported.  The false positives from the PCR test are alarming.  Even the NYT full of liberals wrote a piece about it.  This link mentions their analysis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

False positive or otherwise inaccurate testing as well as limited availability are persistent challenges in the failed federal pandemic response of the Trump administration.  Certainly you are aware that false positive test results have nothing to do with hosptalizations or death rates. Why aren't you concerned that the consensus of your small group is in contradiction to the majority of researchers and published experts?

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2767980

 

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At one time the consensus of the population was that the world was flat.  Just because I don’t agree with the majority doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

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