Posted on 10/07/2009 2:09:03 AM PDT by Scanian
ONE top argument for national health insurance turns out to be based on a false assumption. We've long been told that it's the uninsured who are clogging hospital ERs. Turns out that it's actually Medicaid and other insured patients behind most misuse of emergency-room care.
Which means that health-care "reform" would make the problem worse.
ERs are indeed dangerously overcrowded; having worked in a busy city ER for more than a decade, I can tell you that the "extra" patients interfere seriously with basic care. But the solution doesn't involve giving more people insurance coverage -- it requires turning more people into wise consumers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Without the “misuse,” how many hospital ERs would remain open and well-staffed enough to concentrate a trained force of medical professionals to deal with the real emergencies that roll in ?
EVERY person presenting to the ER should be triaged by a mid-level practitioner (PA or NP).
If their condition is not emergent, the should be offered the choice of: a) paying the entire bill w/ cash/credit card at the time of service, or b) told to see their primary MD in the morning.
People that don’t pay for their care (medicaid) anyway are the ones clogging the ER, and they are the ones that think nothing of raising hell for having to spend HOURS waiting to be seen for their mild case of the sniffles.
The ER is NOT your doctor’s office!
All of them.... but I concede that you’d only need a doc and 3-4 nurses on a weeknight 2am-8am shift, rather than the 2/15 staffing we have now(at my small community hospital).
In Northern Arkansas, our regional medical center has somewhat solved the misuse problem. If it is definitely not an emergency, the ER crew and medical center demands a $100 CASH payment in order to be seen. They also offer to make an appointment for the so-called emergency patient to see their own physician the next day. Those who say they don’t have a family physician will be offered placement with a family physician group the next day also.
Seems to be working
I'd like to add:
EVERY person presenting to the ER should be triaged by Immigration and Border Enforcement. Our citizens are denied service, or recieve a lesser level of service, because of all the illegal Mexicans gumming up the system. Get rid of them and you remove a big part of the problem.
While I tend to agree overall, FRiend, in my area illegals are no longer a problem, and never were the major issue anyway. Two years ago, the area was flooded with hispanics - construction mostly. Now, with the economy the way it is, there are no jobs at all for them now. Mostly, they relied on home remedies and pay-for-play Urgent Cares; many were afraid that the LEO’s on guard in our ER would catch them and have them deported.
What we are seeing in my ER are the chronic medicaid visitors that do not have a primary care physician; chain smokers continuing to smoke after being diagnosed w/ COPD; and the Fri/Sat night drunks that have learned they can come into the ER intoxicated, claim “chest pain” and get a few shots of morphine, get admitted to sleep it off, then disappear from their room come daylight. And do it all again the next weekend!
These are the abuses that need to be stopped. By all means, catch the illegals and send them home, but I don’t think that they are the bulk of the problem in our ER’s.
I see them in the Handicapped parking spot often. Their "handicap" is that they're fat and lazy!
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