BUFFALO, N.Y. — Western New York’s hospitals were in dire financial shape coming into 2020. The COVID-19 epidemic — with the attendant costs in equipment, staffing and, perhaps most damagingly, lost revenue — is going to compound their problems.
“It’s going to be ugly,” Kaleida spokesman Michael Hughes told Investigative Post in an email.
It’s not just hospitals that will feel the pain, either. Primary care practices, clinics and other medical service providers, their business greatly diminished by the shutdown, all are facing pay cuts, layoffs and even closure.
The $2.2 trillion federal CARES Act, passed last week by Congress, includes a $100 billion lifeline for health-care businesses, big and small. It’s “a ray of hope,” according to Dr. Nancy Nielsen, an internist and senior associate dean for health policy at UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.