Remdesivir is a COVID Cash Cow –
Hospitals are given a 20% Bonus on the Entire Hospital Stay for administering Remdesivir to supposedly combat the concern that hospitals might not use a new or experimental drug. This has instead created a perverse incentive to ignore the clear signals, as evidenced in the studies cited below, that Remdesivir increases risk of all-cause mortality and kidney damage.
This bonus comes from language in the New COVID-19 Treatments Add-on Payment (NCTAP) inserted into the CARES Act.
Not only does this rule incentivize using Remdesivir; it incentivizes your hospital to make EVERY patient a COVID Inpatient.
Data on the safety and efficacy of using remdesivir in combination with corticosteroids are primarily derived from observational studies, with some (but not all) of these studies suggesting that remdesivir plus dexamethasone provides a clinical benefit for patients with COVID-19.3-5 Remdesivir plus dexamethasone has not been directly compared to dexamethasone alone in a large randomized trial. However, there are theoretical reasons that combination therapy may be beneficial for some patients with severe COVID-19. Remdesivir has also been studied in combination with other immunomodulators, including baricitinib6 and tocilizumab.7 See Therapeutic Management of Hospitalized Adults With COVID-19 for the Panel’s recommendations on using remdesivir with or without immunomodulators in certain hospitalized patients.
Is it any wonder every hospital is testing for COVID, often multiples times?
“This rule also establishes an add-on payment for cases involving the use of new COVID-19 treatments under the Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS).”
Through the NCTAP, the Medicare Program will provide an enhanced payment for eligible inpatient cases that use certain new products with current FDA approval or emergency use authorization (EUA) to treat COVID-19
Coding for NCTAP
NCTAP claims are those that are eligible for the 20% add-on payment under Section 3710 of the CARES Act. Eligible claims have an ICD-10-CM diagnosis code U07.1 (COVID-19) and one of the following:
- ICD-10-PCS codes for remdesivir (Veklury), COVID-19 convalescent plasma, or baricitinib (Olumiant).
- National Drug Codes (NDC) for nirmatrelvir and molnupiravir
Considering effective steroids are often withheld or given in too small of doses at too late a stage, the Remdesivir-Dexamethasone combination may appear quite helpful initially.
Remdesivir is a supposed therapeutic drug that failed in field testing for efficacy. The recommendation by the FDA is based on the idea that ‘studies SUGGEST Remdesivir plus dexamethasone provides a clinical benefit‘ while simultaneously confessing they did not test dexamethasone (a steroid) alone, to see its impact.
The studies cited below SUGGEST Remdesivir alone is harmful, of course adding a steroid is going to mitigate Covid Inflammation. This is not science; this is the government swindling taxpayers through the Fauci Pharma Funnel.
Remdesivir is also known as Veklury. They are the same drug, so don’t be fooled by the name.
Failed in First Covid-19 Trial in China. Results have since been unpublished.
Increased Mortality in at least one Covid Trial.
FDA has given Remdesivir approval for Covid-19 treatement in hospitalized adults and children 12 and over weighing 40 plus kgs.
WHO recommends against the use of Remdesivir in COVID-19 patients.
Death Rate was the original endpoint of the Remdesivir Study that Fauci heralds as success. This endpoint was changed to “shorten length of hospital stay” in the middle of the study, when they realize it would not meet its goal successfully. Perhaps the ‘shortened hospital stay’ did not always include patient discharge.
Known to be cause Kidney Failure in Covid Patients when compared against use of other drugs.
Given Emergency Use Authorization for use in infants 3.5 kg or above, under the name of Veklury.
To be approved for EUA, there could not be another effective therapeutic, hence the full-on media assault of HCQ (hydroxychloroquine). To finish it off, the Lancet published a falsified, non-peer reviewed HCQ study that has since been retracted. The Lancet now hangs its head in shame.
WHO Admits It Used Fake Lancet Study to Stop Hydroxychloroquine – Killing Tens of Thousands
Jun 5, 2020 – In an astonishing revelation, the WHO was forced to admit that a study they relied on, which removed hydroxychloroquine from a list of COVID-19 therapies for further study, was entirely fictional.
This halted the accepted off-label use of a long known, widely used, inexpensive, efficacious drug and allowed governments, medical and pharmaceutical boards to insert themselves into the Doctor-Patient relationship. Essentially blocking providers ability to prescribe without some stigma or threat or refuse to fill prescriptions all together.
