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Studies Show Emergency Rooms Overwhelmed By Uninsured

By Greg Webb

pp class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"A recent report, released by the American College of Emergency Physicians, states the nationrsquo;s system of a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09emergency.html?pagewanted=1amp;_r=1amp;emamp;adxnnlx=1228929455-Mj/9sOJ9/JdCu57hhsbtFg"emergency rooms/a is in serious trouble. More and more unemployed or uninsured Americans are turning to emergency rooms as a last resort becaue emergency rooms are a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09emergency.html?pagewanted=1amp;_r=1amp;emamp;adxnnlx=1228929455-Mj/9sOJ9/JdCu57hhsbtFg"legally obligated/a to see all patients who enter their doors, regardless of the patient's ability to pay. Doctors warn that the facilities, which are already overburdened, could have even more trouble handling cases of broken bones, heart attacks and other traumas that they deem their core mission. Even before the recession, emergency rooms around the country were reporting a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09emergency.html?pagewanted=1amp;_r=1amp;emamp;adxnnlx=1228929455-Mj/9sOJ9/JdCu57hhsbtFg"dangerously long waits/a for patients and the frequent need to redirect ambulances to other hospitals. Just two years ago, a government survey found there were about 120 million visits to emergency rooms annually, a third higher than a decade earlier. Even then doctors called emergency rooms overburdened, so a recession will just make conditions worse; hospitals will have to absorb the a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09emergency.html?pagewanted=1amp;_r=1amp;emamp;adxnnlx=1228929455-Mj/9sOJ9/JdCu57hhsbtFg"unpaid medical bills/a and some are already experiencing a much higher influx of patients without insurance./p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" /p p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" /p pHowever, the increase is not affecting all hospitals. Some emergency room physicians are reporting a decrease in visits because patients are apparently trying to avoid spending money on anything they deem not essential. As the recession continues, however, many officials of the college of emergency doctors anticipate it is only a matter of time until the a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09emergency.html?pagewanted=1amp;_r=1amp;emamp;adxnnlx=1228929455-Mj/9sOJ9/JdCu57hhsbtFg"escalating number of uninsured/a and the delays in getting primary care create a crisis. One of the physiciansrsquo; major concerns is the potentially long wait by patients requiring a hospital bed. After surveying its members last year, the doctorrsquo;s group learned of at least a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09emergency.html?pagewanted=1amp;_r=1amp;emamp;adxnnlx=1228929455-Mj/9sOJ9/JdCu57hhsbtFg"two hundred fatalities/a related to the practice of ldquo;boardingrdquo;, in which patients on stretchers line the corridors of the facility until they can be moved into a bed./p pWhat is the solution to this problem? Will President Obama's health insurance plan help to remedy these problems, or do something else? Or will a different set of problems be created? It would seem, at first blush, that if more people had health insurance, they may not need emergent care, and instead may be able to receive treatment from their primary care physicians. Likewise, if they had health insurance, they would be able to pay for emergency room visits. Hopefully, a solution will be found. /p/pa href="http://charlottesville.injuryboard.com/medical-malpractice/studies-show-emergency-rooms-overwhelmed-by-uninsured.aspx?googleid=253782"Originally posted/a at a href="http://www.InjuryBoard.com"InjuryBoard/a by a href="http://www.injuryboard.com/member-profiles/Greg-Webb"Greg Webb/a

Full post as published by Charlottesville Personal Injury Lawyer on December 22, 2008 (boomark / email).