Kansas health providers face financial strain from COVID-19. ‘We need help now’

A pandemic is sweeping Kansas, but Lawrence family physician Chad Johanning isn’t seeing a ton of patients.

“Even with tele-health visits, I’ve seen a 50 percent drop in visits during this and I have heard of other clinicians who are closer to 80 percent drops,” Johanning said.

The novel coronavirus has forced healthcare providers in Kansas — and across the country — to suddenly pivot to confront an insidious disease that threatens to overwhelm hospitals in a matter of weeks. But it’s also meant a sharp drop in the number of patients seeking routine and non-emergency care.

The result is health care providers in Kansas are coming under potentially existential financial pressure at a moment when the availability of care has never been more crucial. All kinds of providers — from hospitals to community health centers — are feeling the strain. Small, independently-owned physician practices are especially vulnerable.

While it may sound counterintuitive, a surge of sick patients does not translate into profits for providers. Many make a lot of their money from routine and ordinary care, such as physicals, child checks, and management of chronic conditions like diabetes.

“All of those to a certain extent are on hold right now,” said Johanning, who is a partner at Lawrence Family Practice Center and the president-elect of the Kansas Academy of Family Physicians.

Rep. John Eplee, an Atchison Republican and a family physician, said about half the patients he sees every day involve preventive and elective care.

“Short term, with all that business going away – half your business model is not showing up or coming in,” Eplee said, adding that he didn’t want to focus on finances because “there’s so much financial hurt going around.”

Earlier in March, the Kansas Department of Commerce unveiled an emergency relief fund for the hospitality industry. The $5 million fund is providing one-time loans of up to $20,000 to restaurants, hotels and other businesses.

Advocates for physicians and providers are asking Gov. Laura Kelly to provide some form assistance to the state’s health care industry. Ideas range from a bridge loan program for practices to advancing scheduled grant payments for community health centers.

“They’re not talking about a month from now. Many of these practices are looking a week to 10 days out and know they can’t meet payroll based on current circumstances,” said Rachelle Colombo, director of the Kansas Medical Society, a physician advocacy group.

Community health centers are already under serious financial pressure. Denise Cyzman, CEO of the Community Care Network of Kansas, which represents the centers, said patient visits have plunged between 50 to 75 percent. Some centers risk running out of cash soon.

“They’re already starting to lay people off,” Cyzman said.

An analysis by Capital Link, a national organization that supports community health centers, found that Kansas’s 18 federally-funded centers could lose $13 million over three months. Those same centers could potentially shed 364 jobs. A third could exhaust their operating reserves and nearly 60 percent will be running a deficit.

Cyzman said an additional 16 other state-funded clinics face similar situations.

“The effect was immediate in terms of decreasing revenue,” Cyzman said.

Cindy Samuelson, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Hospital Association, said COVID-19 is increasing costs for supplies and staffing — as hospitals prepare to receive cases— while simultaneously leading to a decline in revenue because of canceled appointments and elective procedures.

The $2 trillion relief package passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump last week, will make a total of about $117 billion available to rural and urban health systems. Samuelson said there aren’t specific figures for Kansas yet.

“This legislation will help those hospitals from rural and urban communities that are in dire financial need due to this devastating pandemic,” Samuelson wrote in an email.

Advocates for the health care industry want state-level help as well. Kelly’s office didn’t immediately comment Monday on whether the administration to planning assistance for the health care industry.

Cyzman said the Community Care Network is asking the Kelly administration to consider advancing state grant payments to clinics that they’re scheduled to receive later in the year.

The Kansas Medical Society supports establishing a similar loan program for physician practices.

“Understandably, there’s an emphasis on public health and making sure that information is out,” Colombo said. “But we need to make sure that these physicians are able to be in practice three weeks from now when some of the infection is going to spike. We need help now.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 5:00 AM.