Financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on an academic otolaryngology department

Objective: To quantify the financial impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on an academic otolaryngology department.

Methods: A year-over-year comparison was used to compare department revenue from April 2020 and April 2021 as a percentage of baseline April 2019 activity.

Results: At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, total department charges decreased by 83.4%, of which outpatient clinic charges were affected to the greatest extent. One year into pandemic recovery, department charges remained down 6.7% from baseline, and outpatient clinic charges remained down 9.9%. The reduction in outpatient clinic charges was mostly driven by a decrease in in-office procedure charges.

Conclusion: Given that precautions to mitigate the risk of viral transmission in the health care setting are likely to be long-lived, it is important to consider the vulnerabilities of our specialty to mitigate financial losses going forward.