Direct Line from Steve Edwards for 10/2/2020

COVID-19 update

Total COVID-19 inpatients are down to 61 today after reaching 83 earlier this week. At that time, Cox South had higher inpatients with COVID than Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, which had 32. I suspect we had the highest COVID census in the state. After dropping to 61 patients, I hope this is the beginning of a trend. However, our forecasting projects a higher census next week based upon recent symptomatic testing positivity rate. I hope we are wrong. We are saddened that we have lost 96 patients to this disease. The youngest death has been 31 years old. To date we have admitted 798 patients with COVID.

We are seeing hot spots in our market. The three counties with the highest rates of new cases per 100,000 in Missouri are in our market. We continue to have an abundant supply of PPE, Remdesivir and Dexamethasone, but the local supplies of convalescent plasma are very limited. We encourage donations of recovered patients with the Community Blood Center of the Ozarks. We also continue to encourage flu vaccination in our community, as the BMJ (formerly called British Medical Journal) predicted the risk of death more than doubled in people who also had influenza.

New contract agreement for behavioral health services

CoxHealth has negotiated a new agreement with Mercy Behavioral Health (MBH), effective Nov. 1 that includes all CoxHealth behavioral health practitioners. A previous agreement only included CoxHealth facilities. MBH provides a network of behavioral health providers to multiple payers including but not limited to CoxHealth MedicarePlus, Anthem EPO/Alliance, Coventry and QuikTrip Corporation.

CoxHealth now accepts the CareCredit Credit Card

As of October 1, CoxHealth is offering patients a new payment solution, the CareCredit credit card. With CareCredit, patients can get promotional financing on expenses of $200 or more with convenient monthly payments to pay for deductibles, copays and out-of-pocket expenses.

New benefit option: Even app features Instapay

CoxHealth is now offering access to the Even app, a financial wellness tool that helps employees manage their money, including the ability to get up to 50% of their pay prior to payday. The app also helps users to budget and save automatically.

Proud to work at CoxHealth

“I had a friend reach out to me this weekend to ask about what it's like to work for CoxHealth. Their family's job security and healthcare coverage has been threatened by recent events and they wanted to know if CoxHealth takes good care of their employees. ​I told them that I have NEVER seen another organization take better care of their employees. Since the start of this pandemic, our leaders have worked hard to keep everyone safe, fully employed, and cared for in every possible way, and we've always valued investing in our employees and developing talent within our own workforce. I was proud to tell my friend that if they worked for Cox, we'd take great care of them and their family.”

Voice of the patient

From a parent from Colorado: “Thanks for taking my call yesterday about the quality of care that we experienced at the Cox facility. Everything and the efforts that your team did in the MICU unit for Covid-19 was beyond measure and our son is alive today because of the hard work and dedication that your staff showed us during those terrible, terrible days at the onset of his Covid-19 infection.

In particular among many, two individuals stood out as he was being prepped to be transferred to St Luke's in Kansas City. Gwen, who is a nurse practitioner, helped facilitate and coordinate the entire move and stabilization of (the patient’s) condition, and Hannah who constantly kept us updated and worked so feverishly hard to save his life on Saturday the 19th, and the innovative thinking of using the NICU Nitric Oxide to help his lungs made the difference. Their dedication has stuck in my mind, and believe that they should be acknowledged for their efforts.

The entire Covid-19 team at your facility is hard-working, dedicated and I know that they also grieve when someone is lost and I want them to celebrate with us the victory that we are beginning to see with (the patient) as he begins to recover from this horrific virus.

Please share this with Mr. Edwards about the quality of care of your team and again from our family and as the dad, we are eternally grateful and we say, thank you.”

Thank you for caring for our community,

Steve