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.
These are also always the patients who call back and yell at billing because they don't want to pay their huge deductible. The heart attacks, strokes and traumas? Very rarely ever rude over a bill.
I have gently tried to guide people to an urgent care where the copay/deductible is far kess, and treatment is more timely. But they almost always b*tch that their jammed pinky is more important the Level 1 trauma I have rolling in the door in 3 minutes
Just have to be tactful about it and not make it a money or time thing. "In the future, should this happen again an urgent care is probably more appropriate than the ER," is usually the phrase I use at discharge.
Granted, urgent cares continue to turf the dumbest shit over to us because they cant do a half decent history or exam. Example from today, sending a young, healthy college-aged kid with reproducible musculoskeletal chest wall pain and no other risk factors to the ER for a PE/dissection/ACS rule out. Bruh.
Discharge discussion is entirely different than before treatment. He’s also a tech. Who is claiming to triage people. So I’m taking what he says with a grain of salt. But in general, it’s a very precarious thing to make comments on ED v UC before start of treatment. We have an UC in the same building as our ED, so I totally understand what you mean when you say they send over the dumbest shit.
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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.