Pushed to Give Covid Therapy, Health Centers Await Medicare Cash

Medicare money isn’t coming in fast enough for many health facilities administering monoclonal antibody treatments to Covid-19 patients, federal officials and local hospital leaders said Thursday.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will pay about $300 per treatment for facilities to infuse the therapies from Eli Lilly and Co. and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. But some hospitals are still racking up debt. Administrative delays, like waiting for billing code updates, make it hard for facilities to get reimbursed quickly.

While many providers can absorb that cost for now, it will be a major problem for smaller, cash-strapped facilities to join ...