“If we stopped testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.” – Donald Trump, June 15 2020
I don’t like the opening framing that the STAT News article gives, that it’s the regulation that incentivizes them to not test and not report, when it’s of course hospital corporation greed that’s really to blame.
STAT – Hospitals get dinged for reporting too many infections. In some cases, the solution is not to test By Tara Bannow Sept. 22, 2025 When a hospitalized patient shows signs of a dangerous, potentially deadly infection, you’d expect clinicians to move quickly: testing to figure out what’s wrong, then treating with the right medicines.But that’s not always what happens. And the reason is often financial: Federal regulators can fine hospitals hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars if too many of their patients get hospital-acquired infections. Some hospital leaders, realizing that if they don’t look for infections, they won’t find them, are discouraging testing, clinicians told STAT. Without testing, patients may not get the best treatment. Executives have also pressured staffers in some cases not to report infections to the government, they said. What’s more, regulators have known about the problem for a decade, but neither Medicare nor Congress has taken action to fix it.
It’s not the fault of regulation. And of course the answer isn’t just letting hospitals have unmitigated spread unchecked infecting everyone like it’s medieval times. The answer most certainly is not hospital administrators and executives unaccountable for lives damaged or lost, and it’s not starving the government of fines by not even creating a cost of doing business. The answer is that there should be routine testing required, as well as infection control protocols in place, and then unannounced inspections by regulators to verify that the testing and mitigation is actually happening.
I made a public comment last year to CDC HICPAC committee at the meeting on hospital acquired infectious disease spread:
The Trump administration shut down the CDC HICPAC committee in May 2025, so now CMS is the only regulation at the federal level on stopping disease spread in healthcare settings.
My letter to reps:
What are you doing to stop disease spread in hospitals? There’s a report out from STAT that says that hospitals are just not testing so that they don’t have to report it. That sounds familiar and bad. It’s going to cost lives and cause patients harm who could’ve been treated properly had they been tested. The CDC HICPAC committee was terminated. Who would be so deranged as to not want infection control in healthcare settings? Unfortunately I know the answer to that question, and that RFKJr person needs to be removed from his position. There should be routine testing required, as well as infection control practices in place, and then regular unannounced inspections to verify that the testing and mitigation is actually happening.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
Trump’s Take On COVID Testing Misses Public Health Realities By Shefali Luthra June 17, 2020