How some are abusing EMTALA in futile cases:
Zee Klein wasn’t about to just let her mother die, no matter what some hospital committee decided. But instead of waging a high-profile fight against the hospital, she decided to get her mother out on her own.It wasn’t going to be easy. For one, Medicare wouldn’t cover Pereira’s care if she were transferred to Christus St. Joseph, the downtown hospital where a doctor had agreed to take the case. Her coverage for her particular diagnosis already had been exhausted at Memorial Hermann.
Further complicating matters, Pereira’s condition was deteriorating fast “” by the time the hospital’s futility committee ruled, she was in respiratory distress and her kidneys were failing. Doctors wrote in her chart that the discharge was against their advice.
“The patient was unstable,” Castriotta said. “Given how sick she was, doctors felt her release would be dangerous.”
The moment wasn’t lost on Klein.
“She looked like she was in the throes of dying,” said Klein, 68, who had previously cared for her late husband when he suffered a stroke and numerous heart attacks. “We didn’t know how long she had.”
Still, Klein had a plan. She would have her mother transferred back to St. Dominic nursing home for several hours, then taken to St. Joseph’s emergency room, where federal law would require she be admitted.
(via Scalpel again)
