Treating the uninsured in New Orleans

Many doctors are doing this for free:

Without the safety net of Charity Hospital, which has been closed since the storm, the region’s uninsured have nowhere to go but the emergency room. There is no real system in place to compensate the people who treat them: Hospitals get a small cut of federal and state money, while doctors receive nothing.

Orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons and other specialists who take emergency calls are not salaried hospital employees. They must seek reimbursement from patients, leaving them with nothing if a person has no insurance and no money to pay the bill. Federal law requires them to treat emergency cases regardless of insurance status, so in the case of the indigent uninsured, they must eat the loss.

Related posts:

1. Treating the uninsured population
2. Hospital charges and the uninsured
3. Many uninsured choose to stay that way
4. Health care costs, not the uninsured
5. Charity hospitals cherry-picking patients?
6. Treating doctors
7. The American Cancer Society and the uninsured

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Tagged as: emergency, hospital, patient, specialist