5/20/2020: The incidence of coronavirus cases are increasing because the frequency of testing is increasing. That should not be surprising nor unexpected. The magnitude of the condition is not reported; asymptomatic or symptomatic patient, just positive or negative test.
The incidence of coronavirus cases with hospital admissions are high perhaps for this contributing reason.
Reimbursement has always been the name of the game in medical economics. Now there is bonus money for coding as COVID-19 for billing purposes. Medicare will pay hospitals a 20% “add-on” to the regular DRG payment for a billing coding of a patient with the new government COVID-19 billing codes.
Medicare has determined that a hospital gets paid $13,000 more if a COVID-19 patient on Medicare is admitted and $39,000 more if the patient goes on a ventilator with the coronavirus diagnosis.
https://www.statesman.com/news/20200422/fact-check-do-hospitals-get-paid-more-to-list-patients-as-having-coronavirus
This is in addition to the base reimbursement. What you incentivize you will get more of. Ever wonder why the high incidence of COVID-19 patients?
The real numbers may never be known.