What a joke this article was. For an ED Doc to blame the hospital is unimaginable!!

Blame can be placed in many areas. Unfunded mandates from the Federal Government like EMTALA. ER's are the only specialty of medicine that cannot deny care, yet there is no federal funding to reimburse ER's for uninsured patients that visit an ER.

Individual irresponsibility for coming to the ER "because it's free." People come to my ER all day long with non-emergent problems, knowing they don't have to pay. In California, where socialized medicine is called MediCal, patients don't have to pay a copay if they go to the ER. Going to their appointed Primary Care Physician (PCP) requires a copay. Where do you think everyone goes?

Charge everyone a copay and watch the dropoff of ER visits by the frequent flyers.

"Ask a Nurse" phone advice. Dial one sometime. They tell everyone to go to the ER.

I am inundated with patients everyday in my ER. We work hard at processing them in and out as fast as possible. With low reimbursements by Medicare, Medicaid and MediCal, My hospital only makes money by processing as many patients as possible. Volume makes money. 85% of patients don't get admitted. This article focuses on a small percentage of a huge problem.

Meisel and Pines are way off the mark on this one. Lobby your politicians to overhaul healthcare, fund mandates and make individuals RESPONSIBLE with the assisted medical insurance my tax dollars pay for.

I just finished a 10 hour shift where I saw 30 patients. Admitted 0.

I too am sick of doctors always refering their patients to the ER at night becuase they don't want to get sued. Come on, a temp of 99.9 in an infant without giving tylenol is not a reason to clog up the ER. We had parent yesterday who brought her infant to the ER with a slight fever...no tylenol given. We gave tylenol in triage and the patient waited 3 hours to be seen. The baby had been rechecked after 2 hours and was found to have a normal temp. The mother stated that she still wanted to see a doctor because they had waited so long. She wanted the doc to reassure that the baby was ok. In our urban ER, we also have a lot of instances where a toddler has a "bead up their nose". Quit putting all those stupid beads in the kid's hair and they won't wake up at night!! DUH!!! Of course the people that do that probably aren't educated enough to post a blog on a website such as this!

Actually, there is federal funding for hospitals that care for a disproportionate number of uninsured and/or Medicare/Medicaid patients. I worked at Denver Health Medical Center for a while, and thanks to these payments it was actually one of the few hospitals in the area that were doing relatively well financially.

kids putting beads up their nose or in their ear or any other 5 min intervention is not the problem for congestion in the ED. Kids will find anything to do something funny like that because A. They are a kid and lack judgement and B: It's a hole, something must need to go in it. C: This fits...see mommy!

It's not lack of education. Kids from parents who hold PhD's do dumb stuff too!

How about all the pregnancy tests and STD checks? There are clinics offereing FREE preg tests on every corner, but they still come to the ED c/o belly pain and we do the million dollar workup just to let them know that they're pregnant! When asked in triage if all they want is a preg test, kind of cut to the chase, you get a big song and dance about belly pain. The average person who is insured, pays taxes, and even votes doesn't come to the ED for a preg test...they go to CVS and buy one!

I suspect if at all you work in a dead end low life job like Medical Billing or Medical records,Mr. Bones..what's that pay now, $8.50 an hour? No wonder youy feel the need to pretend to be'somebody' else..and you show how much derision and antipathy for patients in hospital settings and genuine Health Care Practitionors, you really are just a grunt in a dead job reading and getting frustrating ober billing matters for not much more than a tiny bit above mininum wage.

You wrote this weirdo thing on another thread:"Are you having chest pain, ma'am," one of the paramedics asked.

"No, I got a boil on my vagina. You wanna see?"

"Absolutely not, ma'am. That nice doctor in the back would love to take a look at that."

Keep drinking, you just get more entertaining as you go. Just make sure you stop before you puke on the keyboard, as that would deprive me of future entertainment.