To date – after nearly 12,500 Covid patients – Kaleida Health’s losses are estimated at about $230 million, attorneys for the health system wrote in court documents filed in State Supreme Court in Erie County against American Guarantee and Liability Insurance.
The financial dent from the pandemic was tucked deep within a 70-page complaint Kaleida filed against the insurance company, seeking to recoup some of those losses that it argues should be covered under its high-dollar policy, The Buffalo News reports.
It’s yet further proof of the financial beating that Western New York’s hospitals endured during the pandemic.
Even before the first Kaleida patient tested positive for Covid on March 16, 2020, the region’s hospitals already were on a financial tightrope because of their high concentration of Medicaid and Medicare patients and the lower reimbursements that accompany them. Before the pandemic, Kaleida recorded a deficit of $18 million in 2019.
Zurich, the parent of the insurer, American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Co., declined to comment on the litigation.
The Buffalo Bills sued American Guarantee and Liability Insurance last year, similarly arguing that the insurer should pay for the loss of business income due to Covid-19. Read more.
