Rebuilding COVID19 Broken Healthcare COVID-19 did more than trigger a global health emergency—it exposed how fragile, fragmented, and inequitable the U.S. healthcare delivery system truly is. As The Street noted in Clarise Zoleta’s reporting, the pandemic revealed structural weaknesses that had existed for decades but could no longer be ignored.
Today, rebuilding healthcare after COVID-19 is no longer optional. Instead, it is a national imperative.
Current Challenges Facing the United States Healthcare System
Systemic Healthcare Inefficiency Is Leaving Patients Behind
First and foremost, healthcare efficiency in the United States is failing patients at scale. In many cases, those failures do not simply inconvenience people—they delay care, increase costs, and, tragically, cost lives.
Despite innovation in medicine, healthcare delivery remains siloed, reactive, and difficult to navigate, particularly during crises.
Healthcare Data Does Not Flow Where Patients Need It
Most critically, healthcare systems still do not share or network patient information effectively.
As a result:
- Medical records remain fragmented across providers
- Emergency clinicians lack full patient histories
- Care decisions are delayed or duplicated
- Patients must repeatedly explain their conditions during emergencies
Consequently, poor healthcare data interoperability directly compromises patient safety.
- Healthcare does not share or network information well.
- Public Health Agencies and Medical Care providers are lacking.
- Digital advances are impeded by inflexible technical and regulatory restrictions
- Prolonged deficiencies in the Affordable Care Act and rising healthcare costs with epic unemployment have increased care costs reduced care options, and left many without healthcare in a pandemic.
We must evolve Healthcare delivery to meet evolving patient needs
Public Health and Clinical Care Remain Disconnected
Meanwhile, public health agencies and frontline medical providers continue to operate in parallel rather than partnership. During COVID-19, this disconnect slowed contact tracing, delayed reporting, and hindered coordinated response—particularly in underserved communities.
- Produce a high performance health care system
- Address systemic defects that compromise patient care as priority.
- Improve Digital Health Transfer Standards to integrate records
- Create systemic Unique Patient Identifier to improve mismatched data record relationships that compromise care.
- Improve Unique patient Id and Denied Claims Root Causes that cost Hospitals on average $1.2M annually.
Digital Health Innovation Is Blocked by Outdated Systems
Although digital health technology advanced rapidly during the pandemic, progress remains constrained by:
- Inflexible legacy systems
- Regulatory complexity
- Fragmented standards
- Slow adoption of interoperability frameworks
In effect, digital transformation in healthcare remains incomplete, despite urgent demand.
You’ve Got Your COVID-19 Shot (Keep this Card)
If your first experience with Covid is Immunization, you get a window into the opportunity for improvement. If you were fortunate enough to receive your Covid 19 Immununization you very likely came out with a paper card confirming essentially “You’ve been shot”.
COVID 19 IMMUNIZATION is 25 year AOL Flashback
The 2021 Immunization Process is to look up how to get your shot, or wait to be called, go get the shot, and collect the “paper card confirmation”. Very much like old Dialup Internet Connection handshake, and glorious moment that affirms, “You’ve got mail”.
No Job, No Doctor, No Healthcare. Rebuilding COVID19 Broken Healthcare.
Affordable Care Act Gaps and Rising Healthcare Costs
At the same time, long-standing Affordable Care Act deficiencies collided with mass unemployment during the pandemic.
As jobs disappeared, so did employer-sponsored health insurance—creating a perfect storm of:
Healthcare Worker: One of the 9% with COVID, without Healthcare:
Here is the story of a healthcare worker, whose story is much like many of American’s who got Covid-19 while they did not have insurance.
Her COVID-19 hospital treatment bill hit $34,000—and that number becomes terrifying fast when you multiply it by repeated emergency room visits just to stay alive. Moreover, the COVID test alone cost $907, which is less than 2% of the total medical bill, proving that the biggest drivers of pandemic healthcare costs come from everything that follows.
Because clinicians must deliver care in strict isolation, hospitals often bill every item placed in the room—used or unused. As a result, patients pay not only for life-saving medical care, but also for the full “infection-control package” of supplies, equipment, and staffing required for COVID isolation protocols.
Even if someone survives that first massive invoice, recovering financially can still feel impossible—especially without insurance or with limited coverage. Worse yet, her case carried a double burden: she fought lymphoma and COVID-19 at the same time, which intensified symptoms, prolonged recovery, and increased the risk, pain, and complexity of treatment. Consequently, her story highlights the harsh reality of medical debt after COVID, the hidden mechanics of hospital billing, and the urgent need to rebuild a more affordable, patient-centered U.S. healthcare system.making her health issues and recovery difficult and painful.
What Must Change: Building a High-Performance Healthcare System
To move forward, healthcare delivery must evolve rapidly—and decisively.
Priority Actions for Healthcare System Reform
Healthcare transformation must focus on systemic fixes, not temporary patches:
- Design healthcare around patient needs, not billing workflows
- Create a high-performance healthcare system focused on outcomes
- Address structural defects that compromise patient safety first
- Modernize digital health data exchange standards
- Implement a national Unique Patient Identifier (UPI)
Long Haul Introduced More Challenges:
Long COVID complications create a brutal new reality: you must manage ongoing symptoms, fight to return to work, and pay crushing medical bills—often at the same time. Meanwhile, if you’re unemployed, underemployed, or uninsured, you face an even harsher decision: seek life-saving emergency care or risk going without it because the cost feels impossible.
One woman tested positive for COVID-19 and doctors hospitalized her with acute COVID symptoms, stroke warning signs, and sudden-onset diabetes. Afterward, her crises kept coming—and intensified.
She made 13 emergency room trips, including three 911 ambulance rides where paramedics administered nitroglycerin, plus one sepsis crisis alert.
As a result, her story spotlights the pandemic’s quieter emergency: Long COVID recovery, repeat ER utilization, and medical debt after COVID-19. Meanwhile, it proves how the U.S. healthcare system still fails to deliver affordable care, connected electronic health records (EHR interoperability), and patient-centered chronic illness support.
Other Rebuilding COVID19 Broken Healthcare Resources:
- ACL Administration for Community Living with Long COVID
- CDC Long COVID Guidelines
- Lingering Long COVID Recovery
- Long COVID Clinics and Support
- NIH Long COVID Research
- Public Health Approach to Long COVID | Long COVID | CDC
