LOS ANGELES - The United States is in the middle of a deadly wave of the coronavirus pandemic, leaving health care workers overwhelmed, exhausted and stretched by shortages of staff, hospital beds and other resources needed to deal with the influx of patients sickened by COVID-19.Many already-beleaguered physicians are also facing a potential pay cut as a new rule passed by Congress, set to go into effect Jan.
1, will lower the reimbursement rates that clinicians receive for treating patients covered by Medicare.Some doctors practicing general surgery, emergency medicine, anesthesiology, and critical care medicine — some of the key front-line health care professionals leading the U.S.