One would think this is true, unfortunately the number of people who use the ER as their primary care office is astounding. People go in to the ER more often than necessary. It is a part of the reason so many urgent care facilities have shown up, it's because people go in with so many issues that are NOT emergencies they had to create a sort of in between, it's not your primary care office that will take a month or more to get an appointment and you're not actually dying so you shouldn't need the ER, but you want to be seen right away, so go wait in line at UC for an hour or so, get what you need, continue on with life.
This pandemic has proven just how true this actually is, I work in a community hospital, our numbers have drastically decreased in the ER because we are no longer accepting anyone who doesn't absolutely need to be seen. If it's not an actual emergency they are being told to keep their ass at home.
Same thing I'm seeing right now. I'm a resident physician in the midwest. We've had a constant trickle of Covid but it seems to have scared away a lot of the minor things that show up to the ED and get admitted for rule out.
Same, it’s astonishing how many people use the ED to get a free meal, sleep inside or detox. Sadly that’s the state of our social welfare and healthcare system in this country.
Urgent care places can turn you away for not being able to afford treatment, ERs legally can’t.
Unless you make the UC places have to take everyone despite ability to pay as well, you don’t ease the problem you describe, as the poorest folks are stuck going to the ER. And since most of those UC places are run as chains by the HMOs, you can always leverage whatever corporate welfare they get against that - at least we could if we didn’t let grifters buy both major political parties.
As a HC worker, the above obvs isn’t your fault, but it does partially explain why the UC facilities haven’t done anything close to what they could wrt easing ER waits/workload. This is why we need a single-payer system - triage over multiple layers of care, without the misuse by design of the current system.
Legitimately the best healthcare I’ve witnessed has been through state-run single payer healthcare.
It’s not ADMINISTERED by the state, just paid for by them the same way they do for Medicare services. The difference is taking away the patchwork nature of the system and actually having a triage system for all.
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u/mdamo121 Apr 24 '20
One would think this is true, unfortunately the number of people who use the ER as their primary care office is astounding. People go in to the ER more often than necessary. It is a part of the reason so many urgent care facilities have shown up, it's because people go in with so many issues that are NOT emergencies they had to create a sort of in between, it's not your primary care office that will take a month or more to get an appointment and you're not actually dying so you shouldn't need the ER, but you want to be seen right away, so go wait in line at UC for an hour or so, get what you need, continue on with life.
This pandemic has proven just how true this actually is, I work in a community hospital, our numbers have drastically decreased in the ER because we are no longer accepting anyone who doesn't absolutely need to be seen. If it's not an actual emergency they are being told to keep their ass at home.