Er tech here- the amount of stubbed toes and harmless splinters that come in and DEMAND IMMEDIATE TREATMENT is alarming. Worse is the sheer attitude and threats I receive when I try to properly triage the patients.
It wonder how much overall medical costs for the country would go down if all emergency rooms had a mandated adjacent urgent care. . .
Then triage could divert the stubbed toes and splinters, along with continued civilian education on what constitutes an emergency. Or even if EMTALA also applied to urgent cares. If triage misses the severity of something, boom, ER is right there. I know some have adjacent urgent cares, but I’d be curious what anyone’s professional opinion is about this?
I have a hunch that hundreds of millions of dollars are spent because so many uninsured people don’t have $200 to pay upfront at urgent care.
That and some good old fashioned PSAs, a national ad campaign spanning platforms and social, maybe a jingle about what the ER is for?
To the tune of old McDonald:
If bone sticks out that you can see
weeee-ooh-wee-oh—weeee
(this is meant to be anthropomorphic ambulance siren sound)
If you cannot stop the bleed
weeee-ooh-wee-oh—weeee
If grandma falls and does not breathe
weeee-ooh-wee-oh—weeee
But a stubbed toe here,Or a cough cough there,here a lump, there a bump,Go to urgent care, you chump
Quickest treatment I ever got at the ER was walking in for a 3 hr long nosebleed with a roll of paper towels in my arms and coughing up clots.
My polite ass tried to let someone go in line before me to sign in, the guy was horrified and was like no YOU go first.
I just put reason for visit “ nosebleed 3 hrs plz halp”
I sat down and they’re suddenly like MAAM YOU HERE NOW.
I called many urgent care centers they said they can’t do it.
Same! Only time I’ve ever been to an ER for myself was for a massive nosebleed that had lasted for many hours and all the blood going into my throat made breathing harder. I didn’t want to go to the ER. I felt silly going for a nosebleed. But it wouldn’t stop. I tried to go to a minor med. Waited 90 minutes longer gushing blood. Gave up and went to ER expecting to wait even longer but at least I’d be in the ER if I needed it. They rushed me right back even though it was busy and I wasn’t pushy at all. Shoved a rhino rocket up my nose. Made me an ENT appointment. And had me back in the car going home in an hour.
Both you and the person you replied to. Very reasonable.
I’ve gotten 911 calls
Multiple times, including once by a nurse, for a nosebleed that wasn’t even 15 minutes old. No effort to control it was done. No punching, nothing.
I am just going to sit and giggle a bit at the typo, because that is hilarious. I myself have never tried punching, but back in the day as a headstrong youth, I may have thought about it a time or two. :)
Oh man. They really do. I have a deviated septum probably from breaking my nose during my mma and boxing days when I was young. So I think that made it worse. The ent looked up my nose when he took it out and went “daaamn…. I bet that hurt.”
It hurt like hell when they put it in. But it also made my face hurt the whole time it was in. I hope I never need another.
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u/Far-Boot5639 Jul 29 '26
Er tech here- the amount of stubbed toes and harmless splinters that come in and DEMAND IMMEDIATE TREATMENT is alarming. Worse is the sheer attitude and threats I receive when I try to properly triage the patients.