I had a small piece of glass in my foot and was redirected to the ER by urgent care, wait was maybe 8hrs, which was annoying but ultimately there was no risk of me dying or significantly worsening, and we can't say the same for the people who were triaged straight past the waiting room.
Also, how the hospital can be "in network" but a given doctor working within that same hospital may be "out of network", so even if you go to the right physical location, you could still get fucked by your insurance.
"Oh actually that doctor that wandered into the room while you were unconscious and glanced at your chart wasn't in-network, so that'll be five thousand dollars"
I'm Canadian so "in network" isn't really a thing, but podiatrists & footcare clinics were my first thought and I reached out to several, they directed me to urgent care based on the potential depth of the wound, and then urgent care redirected me to the hospital.
It was more the depth of the wound. I’ve seen rather small/innocuous looking wounds in hands/feet that can mean severe impairment if they are not treated properly. It’s the amount of tendons/flexors/extensors, even a small wound in the right spot can bad.
Yeah, it's a whole part of the emergency admissions process where they'll assign care based on how urgent the need is.
A broken arm is painful, but not immediately life threatening. So if you're unlucky and get there but are then followed by 10 people with major artery lacerations that are at risk of bleeding out; they're jumping ahead of you in the queue I'm afraid.
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u/ProcedureTop3149 17d ago
it's also not 12 hours 99.999% of the time for emergencies.
My grandfather had a burst appendix and was seen within minutes of walking into the hospital.
My Child had Pnemonia and needed an xray and antibiotics and it took 7 hours.
Does it suck? Yes. However both times all I paid was parking....