Some are charging fees for non-emergent ER care. I expect, and encourage, this to be commonplace soon:
Federal and state laws ensure that anyone who comes to an emergency room for care is seen. But Bill Bell, general counsel for the Florida Hospital Association, said that doesn’t mean they all have to be treated there.“If there is no emergency after screening, the law is no longer applicable,” he said. “Hospitals can require people to go to primary care or a clinic.”
If they want, they can charge a fee for patients to stay.
Related posts:
- Nathan Lanier: Solving the emergency room crisis
- More primary care = solving the ER crisis?
- Reader letters: The primary care crisis – don’t take my word for it
- Medicine and the economic crisis
- ER crisis in Tuscon
- "Malpractice fears have thrown the emergency medicine system into crisis"
- Solving the general surgery shortage
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 6 comments }
Um…aren’t many people going to ERs for non-emergent care precisely because they cannot afford to go elsewhere, or are denied access elsewhere because (1) they depend on Medicaid or (2) do not have insurance or (3) do not have the “right” insurance? So, by “solving” the ER crisis in this manner, aren’t you simply delegating the crisis elsewhere?
Please note that I am not suggesting that ERs are not suffering. I am only proposing that moving a crisis is not the same thing as solving it.
How do you define an emergency? How is a patient supposed to know if that ches pain is indigestion or an MI. This won’t work.
Anon at 7:03. I was wondering about it too, so I took a quick look at the referenced article. It seems they don’t charge this extra amount until they determined that the case is clearly not an emergency and isn’t even something they need to evaluate. Only if it is clearly a non-emergency they offer a choice to schedule an appointment with a doctor or to pay extra $100 to be treated in the ER. So nobody who made an honest mistake is penalized. They also don’t charge it for those over $65 or kids.
I do have the same reservations as anon at 12:48, but at least for people who can afford to pay this plan seems to be fair.
NeoNurseChic,
Thanks for your thoughtful response to my post. I appreciate your contributions.
Here locally, our only “free clinic” has stopped even taking a waiting list for appointments — they are that unable to meet the demand. Meanwhile our two local hospitals, both of which are non-profit and receive the associated tax breaks in order to provide charity care, have been nationally criticized for falling short in that. Both have been expanding, but by setting up surgicenters and boutique specialty clinics…not in the area of charity care. And, at last count, at least one of them had over 12 vice-presidents in its administration, which leads me to think there are a lot of dollars going to bureaucracy instead of serving the public.
I agree with Diora that anyone who uses an ER for non-emergent care and is able to pay a fee, absolutely should. But I also think that non-profit hospitals in particular should have an obligation to the community not to simply shut their doors and point the poor to a free clinic that will be unable to see them for six months or more.
Why do I get the feeling that the $100 extra fee for nonemergent treatment in the ED will merely increase the hospital’s bad debt by $100 per encounter?!
Maybe in the LARGE CITIES there are free clinics but not everyone lives in a LARGE CITY! You can’t get blood out of a turnip and this is just another way to discriminate against the poor people who use the ER for medical care.
Comments on this entry are closed.