Health Care Providers Confirm Stunning Drop in Care Volume

They said that they are preparing to launch a testing program that should be able to process about 200,000 SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests per day, and the use of other types of tests should start to recover.

"While there is uncertainty in the near term, we look forward to gradually improving conditions,' Steve Rusckowski, Quest's chief executive officer, said.

Rusckowski noted that the COVID-19 pandemic may be creating opportunities to acquire small lab companies and handle lab testing for hospitals that have been running their own labs.

Sam Hazen, HCA's CEO, noted that HCA hospitals have cared for about 5,500 patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far this year.

He said HCA is feeling, and may continue to feel, the impact of COVID-19-related lockdowns on employment as well as the effects of efforts to prepare for and handle patients with COVID-19.

Like Quest's chief financial officer, HCA's CFO, Bill Rutherford, said patient volume fell off a cliff in mid-March.

Admissions to facilities that HCA owned both this year and last year were up about 5%, year-over-year, for the period from Jan. 1 through March 15, Rutherford said.

"Then for the last half of March, we saw an approximate 20% decline in admissions as compared to the prior year period," Rutherford said. "Almost all of our key volume indicators reflected growth through March 15, and contractions in the last half of March as compared to the prior year period."

In the last half of March, volume fell 30% at emergency rooms, 20% for in-patient surgeries, and 30% for outpatient surgeries, Rutherford said.

For April, volume has been down about 50% for emergency rooms, 30% for inpatient admissions, 50% for inpatient surgeries, and 70% for outpatient surgeries, Rutherford said.

"We have started to see these volume declines stabilize over the past week" Rutherford said.

Rutherford said he's hoping volume might start to recover in the second half of the second quarter — after around May 15.

Hazen, the HCA CEO, declined to talk about how patient volume might look as the health care system starts to recover from the current lockdowns and pandemic response.

"We don't know what the full effect and the damage to the economy are going to be," Hazen said. "We don't understand clearly what the uninsured levels are going to be. And we anticipate the effects to vary by market."

Hazen said HCA also has to make sure that it continues to have enough surge capacity to handle the possibility of a second wave of COVID-19 cases.

Hospitals and Health Insurers

Hospital executives and health insurance company executives often have harsh words from one another.

David Wichmann, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group Inc. said last week, during his company's first-quarter earnings call, that UnitedHealth would take action to correct imbalances caused by COVID-19-related disruption.

Hazen, HCA's CEO, said during the HCA call that he believed UnitedHealth "took a very significant leadership position" in easing some of the usual health insurance claim review procedures and rules.

Other components of the health insurance industry have also made changes that have helped make getting paid more efficient, Hazen said.

"We will continue to work with them, I think in a very collaborative way, to address issues that we have, as well as issues that they have," Hazen said.

— Read COVID-19 May Cut Dental Services Spending for 3 Years: Actuaries, on ThinkAdvisor.

— Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.