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)
