Select hospitals have been chosen in New York to provide free HIV screening tests.
Emergency physician WhiteCoat talks about the repercussions about this move, including the possibility of delayed treatment. He says that resources, which are already stretched too thin, are asked to shoulder the additional burden of screening. “Patients wait for stroke care,” he bluntly says, “so that we can give a free HIV test to anyone that wants them.”
The larger question is who will pay for the testing.
Providing more free services in the ED “just further entrenches the idea in people’s minds that medical care should be free.” The addition of free HIV screening “is just another way to delay care, waste money, encourage more Joint Commission regulations, and cost patient lives.”
Indeed.
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- How screening for prostate cancer can be a gamble, and why either screening or not has consequences
- Unintended consequences of EMTALA
- Pay for performance unintended consequences
- The unintended consequences of electronic records
- The unintended consequences of P4P
- The unintended consequences of preventing patient falls
{ 2 comments }
HIV testing that is completed for free should never take the precedence of a person seriously ill.
how funny that the next article shows how doctors who are allowed to practice without controls waste over 60 billion a year on unnecessary heart stents.
Invasive cardiac treatments, “despite the questionable mortality benefit they have in patients with stable, asymptomatic heart disease.
I am guessing that would be enough to provide preventive care including HIV testing to pretty much everyone.
Perhaps it is time to stop greedy doctors and only reimburse ones who agree to a salary? France has great care with private reimbursement but the docs are paid up to 1/3 as much.
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