When the COVID-19 public health emergency ends on May 11, the 20 percent increase in Medicare payments to hospitals caring for Medicare patients suffering from the disease will end as well.

In the first two years under this payment policy, which took effect in January of 2020, the federal government paid more than $23 billion to hospitals caring for COVID patients.  Of that amount, 20 percent consisted of the supplemental payment.

The end of the supplemental payments will be particularly challenging for community safety-net hospitals, which care for larger numbers of low-income, uninsured, and under-insured patients than other hospitals and therefore operate on much smaller margins.  As a result, the loss of this revenue will hit them especially hard.

Learn more about the end of these additional payments and what it may mean for hospitals and Medicare beneficiaries from the Becker Hospital Review article “The 20% cut coming for hospitals.”