Hospitals are struggling to woo patients to reschedule care

Jim Johnson was elated when his hip replacement, canceled in March along with other elective surgeries, finally was performed in May. For months, his pain had been “God-awful,” he said — so severe he couldn’t sleep, golf or do his job as a part-time pallbearer. Just a few weeks after the operation, he tossed his cane away.

Hospitals and doctors’ practices across the country are hoping there are a lot more Jim Johnsons out there — patients willing to shake off fears about the coronavirus and come back for tests and treatments put on hold early in the pandemic.

Yet persuading them to return for non-emergency care is a tricky message right now, with the virus slamming the South and West. In parts of Texas, Arizona, Florida and other states, elective procedures have been halted again. For some patients, the spike in infections is reigniting fears about catching the virus in a hospital or a doctor’s office. Doctors worry that could undermine their efforts to win people back, and lead to more lives being lost from other, often preventable causes, such as cancer and heart disease.

“Some patients are afraid to come in,” said Peter Shields, deputy director of Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. He said the hospital is running at less than full capacity and recently ran advertisements designed to reassure patients it was safe to get treatment.

The virus’s refusal to go quietly is the latest challenge for medical facilities grappling with new safety protocols, huge backlogs and public anxieties surging along with the virus. Doctors say “elective procedures,” including for cancer, can’t be delayed indefinitely without ill effects. Hospitals, meanwhile, see orthopedic, cardiac and cancer surgeries as their key to survival after losing billions of dollars on the shutdown of lucrative procedures.

Providers are making some progress luring patients back. Screening tests for breast, colon and cervical cancer, which plunged by 86% to 94% early in the pandemic, were running just 20% to 30% below normal as of mid-June, according to Epic, the electronic health records company.