The Overtaxed Emergency Room

One of the main areas of concern for analysts watching the current crisis of health care in the United States is that emergency rooms are used more and more each year, at great cost to the health system as a whole. the seriousness of this problem has caused some amazing reactions among health care providers. In one case at a hospital in California was forced to set up a tent outside the hospital in order to accommodate the number of people flock to their ER. In another example, two hospitals in Louisiana are afraid that their emergency rooms can not handle the number of visitors who will begin to arrive at the emergency closing third in the area.

What exactly is the appeal to the emergency room? After all, if you have ever been to visit once, and chances are high that you, considering that in 2009, emergency room handled more than 119 million separate visits, there is very little to recommend it. The average wait to be seen by a doctor for a long time, it varies greatly among hospitals, but it can easily take an hour or sometimes much longer before being tested. Usually this is not a pleasant place to wait, especially considering that you are surrounded by some very sick people.

argument was made ​​that the extreme overcrowding in emergency rooms due to the many uninsured people use the ER as primary care option. Since the uninsured can not afford to see a doctor to treat common diseases of life, such as colds, flu and other diseases better see a doctor after the appointment, go to the ER for their routine treatment and care they need;. they do not know that will not be turned away just because they can not pay

This has proven to be just a theory, however, at least in the case of Massachusetts. Recent reforms have given there all the inhabitants of medical coverage, but the rate of emergency room use is still exceptionally high. This finding has surprised many people, especially those who believed that universal health insurance would curb excessive / misuse of this facility. Since this was not the case in Massachusetts, according to a study done by the Urban Institute non-profit organization based in Washington, analysts are now scrambling to explain these unexpected results.

According to some, most likely explanation for the continued overuse of emergency rooms comes down to convenience. Anya Rader Wallack, interim president of Blue Cross / Blue Shield Massachusetts Foundation, a co-sponsor of the report explains the findings this way:

"People who have stronger links with primary care physicians, people who are able to get same day appointments, and people who are able to get after-hours care would be potentially a big difference, " said Wallack.

In other words, by Wallack, an alternative to using ER for primary health care must also change. It is not just a question of coverage, but access, while people are happier with their primary care doctors and feel they can not see them before the more convenient times throughout the day, emergency assistance and will continue to be inundated with non-emergency visits, the high cost of health system.

The study also revealed some interesting characteristics among those who use the emergency room as a substitute for the traditional model of primary health care. People from Massachusetts who used emergency at least three times in the past year have found that:

O They are sick and disabled people more than people in the general population.
o They are more common among low-income strata of society, and have fewer years of formal education.
o They tend to live in Boston or southeastern Massachusetts.
These frequent visitors to the ER account for almost 25% of total annual visits ers in the country.

is an incredible emergency life-saving addition to the health care system, which is responsible for saving thousands of lives in many different circumstances. However, overtaxing the system, risk reduction effectiveness of these emergency care centers. Therefore it is important to become educated to determine the true emergencies that require a visit to the ER, and when it is better to be a meeting to visit your doctor.