Of all the "facts" flying around, this one is not only one of the most powerful by itself, but is also (even if it is in some way false) a great distilled example of all the unimaginably strong incentives pulling at the world right now, which I hope gives people an appreciation of how little they can actually know for sure.
Even with such a fact slapping you in the face, I mentioned this to someone and the response was basically "hospitals and doctors exist to help people, they would never take advantage of the system like that". There was no continuing the conversation from there. Who knows how reality works, but at the least we've had radically different life experiences if you don't think this could cause the case count to be pulled strongly in the upwards direction away from the actual number. And I'm sure there are other influences pulling it back down, so maybe all the forces are balancing themselves out.