From ProPublica:

Most ER providers in the U.S. work for staffing companies that have contracts with hospitals. Those staffing companies are losing revenue as hospitals postpone elective procedures and non-coronavirus patients avoid emergency rooms. Health insurers are processing claims more slowly as they adapt to a remote workforce.

[…]

[A memo from Alteon Health, a major hospital staffing company] announced that the company would be reducing hours for clinicians, cutting pay for administrative employees by 20%, and suspending 401(k) matches, bonuses and paid time off. Holtzclaw indicated that the measures were temporary but didn’t know how long they would last.

From The Boston Globe:

Emergency room doctors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have been told some of their accrued pay is being held back. More than 1,100 Atrius Health physicians and staffers are facing reduced paychecks or unpaid furloughs, while pay raises for medical staff at South Shore Health, set for April, are being delayed.

From Twitter, which is what lead me down this wormhole in the first place:

My dad’s an ER doctor. He just got off of a conference call. His hospital is cutting his salary - and everyone else’s that works on the front lines - because they’re losing money from non-COVID patients.

Cutting medical personnels’ salaries right now. I mean... what the fuck?

— Cameron Beach (@CameronNBeach) April 3, 2020

Good thing we paid billions in bailouts to airlines and other corporations. Granted, the coronavirus stimulus bill did provide $100 billion for hospitals and healthcare providers, but it seems that none of that is trickling down to the people on the front lines keeping us alive. Read the rest

A physician at an emergency room in Aomori Prefecture, Japan was so annoyed with a man who showed up at the hospital three times in one night that he socked the patient in the gut. Apparently the fellow kept returning in an ambulance, complaining about different issues, before being examined and sent home. Read the rest

For more than a century, physicians have used music to make patients feel better before, during, and after surgery. A new scientific meta-study looks at the evidence and confirms that yes, listening to music has measurable pain-killing properties and reduces anxiety around surgery. Read the rest