Almost a quarter of ER visits in this LA emergency room are for non-emergent issues:
Hernandez, 45, is among a relatively small “” but extremely costly “” group of patients known in the field as “frequent fliers.” They are chronic users of the emergency room whose care would be far less expensive, and who would probably be less sick, if they were seen regularly in a primary-care clinic.He is an extreme example of a wider problem: About 40,000 people each year “” about 22% of ER patients “” go to the emergency room at County-USC with health problems that do not qualify as true emergencies, according to county officials. Millions of people across the country do the same thing, but the problem is especially acute in Los Angeles County, where a quarter of non-elderly adults are uninsured.
Many of these patients are homeless or working poor people. And in Los Angeles County, many are immigrants, legal and illegal. Collectively, they have strained the more than 70 emergency rooms in the county to the breaking point, helping to boost uncompensated care costs to $1.6 billion annually.
(via Graham)
Related posts:
- Rewarding hospital frequent fliers
- The games drug seekers play
- Health services to illegal immigrants
- ER waits: The NY Times is half-right
- Treating the uninsured in New Orleans
- Doctoring The Truth About The Uninsured
- Unnecessary hospital admissions cost money and can harm patients
{ 2 comments }
After last night’s raid in LA, there’ll be 761 fewer illegal aliens clogging up the corridors at LA County.
I spent time at LA County (10 years ago). There are alot of competing issues not mentioned in the article. There used to be a rule that if a PCP wanted his patient to see a specialist, he had to be referred through the ER. So that was one source of un-needed visits. There is a whole section of the ER devoted to prisoners, who get their care in the ED. There is (or was)an “Asthma ER” where alot of people get all their asthma care. LA county is not a typical ER, though we all do alot of primary care these days.
Comments on this entry are closed.