Fact Check: Trump Claims Doctors ‘Get More Money’ for Coronavirus Deaths

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During a hearing by the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on July 31, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) asked Redfield, the director of the nation’s leading public health agency, to comment on the “perverse incentive” for medical personnel to claim someone died of the Chinese instead of other diseases. “I think you’re correct in that we’ve seen this in other disease processes too, the CDC chief responded, noting that during the HIV epidemic, hospitals preferred the HIV classification over a heart attack “because there’s greater reimbursement.”

Redfield did not indicate all doctors and hospitals are overcounting virus deaths, but rather that there is a monetary incentive for them to do so.

He suggested there is no way to know for sure to what extent doctors and hospitals are taking advantage of the incentive to classify the cause of death as the Chinese virus.

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