COVID-19 wreaks financial havoc
Study of similar illness finds significant impact
For those infected with the new coronavirus, simply surviving is the top priority. But a study suggests that some survivors will face long-term financial burdens that could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The study by researchers at University of Michigan and several other institutions examined the costs borne by people who suffer acute respiratory distress syndrome, one of the severest complications of COVID-19.
Published in the journal Critical Care Medicine, the study examined ARDS survivors in 2017 and 2018, well before the new coronavirus was discovered late last year. However, one of the study authors, Katrina E. Hauschildt, a doctoral candidate in sociology at University of Michigan, called the findings “incredibly relevant to people who get ARDS from COVID-19.”
ARDS is the most common cause for COVID-19 patients being transferred into the intensive care unit, said Lynn Schnapp, chairman of the department of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
“It’s a serious, I want to say, ‘dreaded,’ complication,” Schnapp added.
ARDS is an extreme shortness of breath that leaves vital organs deprived of oxygen and often forces patients to be hooked up to ventilators. It’s a complication that can be brought, not only by COVID-19, but by a wide variety of conditions, including pneumonia, flu and severe trauma.
The study’s authors interviewed 46 ARDS survivors and found that 31 — roughly two-thirds — experienced at least some serious financial repercussions.
“I am dead broke. That’s a fact,” said a 61-year-old man in the study. He reported that at the time of his illness he’d had insurance, but it lapsed because he was unable to work.
“I had to dip into my 401(k),” a 62year-old man in the study reported. “Actually to this day, we’re still paying off the medical bills.”
A 61-year-old woman reported that her medical bills reached $2 million, though she said her husband had excellent insurance. “So that is not a problem in the least, but we would have lost every single thing we owned if we didn’t have insurance.”
The study reported that after surviving ARDS many patients were unable to work, either temporarily or permanently.
A 55-year-old man in the study said he had to sell his fire prevention company and go on disability after suffering ARDS.
“About 40% of the people who get ARDS aren’t able to work for the next year,” said Jonathon Truwit, enterprise chief medical officer at Froedtert Hospital and a professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Truwit said that ARDS survivors find that their lungs recover and are able to breathe almost normally. However, the survivors suffer other problems, especially muscle weakness.
“You have problems with your ability to walk distances or lift things, your ability to concentrate. You have nightmares,” Truwit said, adding that about one in three ARDS survivors suffers from depression, and about 40% have to return to the hospital at least once over the next year.
After reading the new study, Schnapp said that patients who get the syndrome as a result of COVID-19 are unlikely to do any better than those in the study. “They will experience similar financial distress,” she said, “maybe even worse because of the economy, the loss of jobs and loss of insurance coverage.”
A Chinese study published in the journal Critical Care said the version of ARDS brought on by COVID-19 seems to differ from the version brought on by other causes. For example, it tends to appear days later in COVID-19 patients than in patients with other conditions.
Schapp said the question of whether there are key differences between ARDS brought on by COVID-19 and the version caused by other conditions “has been the subject of much debate around the country. We still are waiting for sufficient data.”