I noticed that most posts are made by medical personnel blaming the people. Why should any of you care what happens to the patients waiting to be seen? If you have an emergency you don't have to wait to be seen. I went to the hospital with chest pains and had to wait to go through triage. Thank god it wasn't a heart attack I would have been dead. When asked why I was told there was only one doctor on duty. I am tried of the poor, neglected, underpaid doctors blaming it on the patients. What happened to the oath swearing to take care of all patients. Did they change it to only the insured? Did you ever stop to think that most people go to the emergency room because they have to do their jobs to pay for the likes of housing, food, and utilites and some don't even have that. With the cost of everything going up these days you are likely to see more and more patients that can only be seen in the emergency room. Don't get me wrong because I agree that the emgergency room is misused but quit blaming others and take some responsibilty that the doctors and nurses have. Just because a person has no insurance or low paying insurance do they deserve to sit and die? I think not. Hey patients waiting hours to be seen,take an ambulance to the hospital those patients don't have to wait to be seen. I have also been told that a lot of hospitals have emergency room doctors that are from contractors. They get paid wether they see one patient or fifty. Come on docs and nurses the poor and underinsured PEOPLE would like to live too.

Perhaps you too are one of the many obese americans who smoke. You buy cable and beer instead of medical insurance. Saty out of the ER unless its truly an emergency and in case you haven't noticed no one else sticks up for the medical community so we must tell the truth so you get actual information not just media hype.

Give me a break. You are probably one of those welfare people who doesn't have a job or a primary care physician. You wouldn't have gone to triage if you had real chest pain. People with REAL problems don't get sent to triage.

I don't know where you get your info but, it's a fact if you arrive by ambulance for your cough or constipation whatever your non-emergency is for the day you will WAIT. Only LIFE THREATENING EMERGENCIES WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF FIRST. It does not matter if you come by ambulance or car. When I worked on an ambulance that is what most of my patients thought too. Research your information before you start slamming the medical professionals who vow to take care of people like you thankful or not.

Problem is all the drunks who need to use tha bathroom call the ambulance, fake a seizure, and have to be brought in. They get in to the ER first, go take a leak, then walk out the front door. And the little old ladies who can't stop hiccupping or their hair hurts of their fart smells nastier than usual. It's everyone and their mother using the ER for stupid little things that can be taken care of at home, but are too stupid or too lazy to put the band aid on themself. And you don't believe me, ask any EMT or FD personnel.

"Hey patients waiting hours to be seen,take an ambulance to the hospital those patients don't have to wait to be seen"

I work as a paramedic and this is something that you see all the time. When you get to a home and the patient had been ill for a few days they will tell you they called you because they knew that they wouldn't have to wait for a room. This is something that the public needs educated in. Prior to us beginning transport we contact the facility that we are transporting to. The patient is triaged based on the information that was obtained during the assessment. If it is not critical you may end up with a $800 or more ambulance bill as well as a wait in the ER. only thing calling an ambualnce will get you is getting triaged faster. Another down side to the above statement is you take an ambulance out of service for a non critical transport and what happens to the person who calls 911 for a life threatening injury or medical condition. You are now placing that patient in the position of waiting for the next ambulance. There is not 500 ambulances on every cornor. We are strategically posted throughout the city. There is only a certain number available as well. The fire department i work for we have 20 available for approx 150,000 people. Granted all ambulances are rarely out all the time. In the event they are which happens more often then the public realizes, a neighboring agency is called in. If an ambulance is not available then you wait. In the event that everyone started using us as a taxi service the number would have to increase and that means an increase in your taxes. When we get to the scene i have never asked may i have your insurance. I only obtain that after i have delivered you to the hospital. I understand that even a sore leg in the middle of the night feels like an emergency at the time, . Emergency Medical Service has gone from what it was designed for and became Mobile Medical Service. Calling and ambulance because you want a bed faster is not the solution. Solution is how the nurse describe in another artical. Mental Health facilities are needed to treat and house patients so they are not roaming around as homeless going to the ER because they need a bed and a meal. See a family doctor and stop using the ER as primary care. I am more than happy to come and provide Emergent care, however i have been called for a tooth ache when the patient was told to go to a dentist. In my city there are Dentists that voluneer their time to provide free care. There are free clinics. However patients still choose to go to the ER because they do not want to make an appointment and wait an hour or two. They would rather tie up the ER and wait 2-12 hours. Next time take a second and ask yourself can this wait until i can see my doctor in the morning. If not call 911

I'm late to the party here and haven't read any of the other threads here, but your reply kind of made my stomach roll. I love, love, love all the things you list that you ASSUME this person is buying instead of insurance.

Well, I have insurance. It's freakin' $700 a month. My husband and I are healthy and have no writers. The only thing we could do to reduce it is drop the maternity coverage, but we already had one kid without maternity coverage. OUCH! That totals over $8,000 each year and that doesn't include prescription coverage, 20% of any medical procedures we might need done and $15 co-pays. Honestly, do you think everyone can afford that?

Then there are people who, because of some pre-existing condition, cannot get any coverage at any price.

My mother recently had a trip to the emergency room. She, by the way, has great insurance. But, it was an EMERGENCY. However, she also got excellent care. Perhaps it is because she has insurance. Perhaps it is because that ER is pretty good. I don't know. Oh, and then we got some pretty shitty care on the med-surg wing after her appendix was removed. So, I guess it is a crap shoot.

Your post is assanine. You ask, "Why should any of you care what happens to the patients waiting to be seen?" Last I looked, that's what this article is trying to address. And, yes we do care about the patients waiting to be seen; that's why most of us got into this profession.

A point I want to make is that in my facility, the doctor's and the nurses have no idea who has insurance and who does not. We do not collect that information...our admissions staff does. And, the doctors and nurses do not ask the patients about their coverage (unless the physician is writing a prescription that might be expensive and he wants to know if the patient has the ability to get the prescription filled). We treat everyone the same, and we see patient's based on their acuity level. BOTTOM LINE..Sicker patients get seen first. We have to make proper use of our limited resources.

It's amazing to me so many people are so thankless for the work we do.

Save one life, they call you a hero; Save many lives, they call you an ER Doctor or an ER Nurse.

It is a crap shoot! I am sorry you got such horrible care on the MED-SURG unit. However not to make up excuses for the care but I can tell you that you can not please everyone in the Hospital and I do try! Here are some of the things that can cause one persons stay horrible over another. When I work MED-SURG, I work all units FYI, I get from 4-7 patients. I can tell you it is more like 6-7 these days. I have patients that can range from a simple appendectomy to someone with multiple-multiple injuries and treatments, like a car accident. You will actually have patients that cant move or take care of themselves have small children present and know one else. Like drop off day care! You will have patients ask for the craziest things and want you to cater to their every need. Now I know if a patients is completely immobile that I will help as much as possible, however this is a hospital not the FOUR SEASONS or the HILTON! Some patients treat the staff and nurses like we are the help. I can tell you that nursing doesn't just include nursing anymore. Because of law suits and a nursing shortage paperwork and other un-nursing tasks can take up 50% of the nurses time! I again am sorry for your horrible stay but take a look at the whole picture, unfortunately there are some very NEEDY patents that are in the hospital. And sometimes the good patients follow through the cracks.

In the ER that i work in every person with chest pain gets triaged ahead of others and lab work and an EKG is done on that person. Based on the outcome of the EKG some people do wait in the waiting room because we do not have beds. Either way most of the time the doctors wait for the lab work to be completed so when our patients do come back they see the doctor immediately and all their tests are done. This is one of the ways we try to be more efficient in taking care of critical patients first.

On the insurance front, we have registration people who collect all of that information and we don't even know if our critical patients have insurance or not. the law is called EMTALA we are required to treat all medical emergencies and labor no matter what and we do. When we get a "cardiac red" or cardiac arrest we don't care what that patients insurance says we care about saving that persons life! Insurance has nothing to do with critical patients at the nurse level!

You're tired of the "poor, neglected, underpaid doctors" blaming the patients! As a medical professional, I did take an oath to take care of patients. I didn't go to school until I was thirty (racking up 100k+ in student loans), nearly miss the birth of one of my children, go to marriage counseling because my job demands that I spend so much time at work, miss birthdays, holidays, etc... to take care of patient's for free. I remember taking an oath, but nowhere in there was it to provide free healthcare. Working in the ED, I don't really have much of a choice however, as we see everyone, regardless of if they can pay or not.

If the ER let EVERY person straight to the back who came in saying they have chest pain, other people would never get seen. You have no idea how many people will come in and ask if there is a wait, and if there is, all of a sudden thier complaint will turn from "my leg hurts" to "my leg hurts, and i have chest pain."

It has nothing to do with money when it comes to the ER, and im sick of hearing that, in my ER the doctors and nurses dont even check to see if the person has insurance, the registration people take care of all of that.

And your idea of calling 911 to skip the wait, classic abuse of the system. And it DOES NOT WORK. The medics will call ahead with what they are bringing in and if it is a case that is ok to go through the normal triage process, thoes people will be sent to the waiting room to check in just like everyone else.

The ER staff is hardly to blame for the overcrowding and wait times, its the people who flood the place with a cut finger, or back pain for 3 months that show up every day.