We recently interviewed medical economist Jeffrey C. Bauer, Ph.D., on trends in the COVID-19 era. A two-time TRSA Healthcare Conference keynoter, he’ll also address this year’s Dec. 1-3 Healthcare Conference “virtual event” (click www.trsa.org/healthcare for details). Excerpts follow.

How bad is the financial situation facing hospitals?

On average, it’s bad. But, it’s not uniform. So some are doing OK—believe it or not. Others are in a world of hurt and probably not that far from technical default. So you can have one owner providing service in two different markets and one could be fine and the other could be ...