Amid all the news reports about the frontline doctors and nurses risking their lives to care for COVID-19 patients there is the reality that most doctors are not involved in that effort. Surgeons, for example, have found that their usual patient and surgery load has almost vanished. There are bans on elective procedures being performed in most hospitals, in order to have beds and personal protective equipment available for the virus patients and their providers. So a surgeon who ordinarily performs 10-15 procedures a week, may now find that he or she is lucky to be able to see post-op patients occasionally in the office.  The lack of revenue from coronavirus is causing some medical practices to go broke.

This is true for dermatologists, rheumatologists, nephrologists, and many other specialties who treat conditions not related to, or impacted by, the virus pandemic. Many specialty practices have had to lay off or furlough most of their staff, but the other overhead costs, including rent and malpractice insurance, continues. A large surgery-based medical practice has reported that its revenues have been cut by 80% since the virus lock-down, and it is telling its medical staff to stay home. Belatedly, some of these physician practices realized that, as a “small business,” they are eligible for the special SBA funding loans to keep employees on the payroll. But the two “waves” of funding passed quickly, and most physician practices did not receive such financial help.

One physician reported that, in his hospital, the emergency departments and ICUs are packed with COVID-19 patients, but the rest of his hospital is like a ghost town, with empty rooms and hallways.  

Even many emergency rooms have found that the “usual” patients they would see are not coming to the ER. Some observers are puzzled about why and how the number of heart-attack and stroke patients have drastically dropped. For problems that are truly not emergent, it can be expected that a patient might stay away from an ER because of fear of the virus. But if someone has signs or symptoms of a cardiac event, or is undergoing a stroke, it is assumed they would find their way to an ER rather quickly. As the dust settles after the pandemic is under control (we hope that will occur), there will be interesting studies of this phenomenon.