It’s deja vu all over again for many healthcare organizations. The resurgence of COVID-19 cases is reviving many of the same challenges that afflicted hospitals and nursing homes this spring, including shortates of personal protective equipment (PPE) and staffing problems due to illnesses. Managers grappling with these challenges now can add curtailment of elective surgeries to this list, along with the revenue impact such a decision brings to the organization.

As COVID-19 hotspots spring up across the country, hospitals once again must decide how to take care of those patients while providing other services, according to MedTech Dive. When the virus first hit earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, along with some state and local authorities, restricted elective procedures, mandating systems had a certain amount of PPE on hand before performing them.

Now, rising cases nationwide mean resources enabling elective surgeries again are strained. Elective procedures such as knee or hip replacements are among the most lucrative for systems, with many facing major financial fallout.

At Mayo Clinic in Northwest Wisconsin, both the ICU and medical surgical units are full, a spokesperson said recently. The system stopped scheduling elective care starting Oct. 31 in order to free up beds for COVID-19 patients. Other Mayo Clinic locations in Wisconsin and Minnesota also have reduced elective care, a spokesperson said.

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