Absurd? Online Appointments for Hospital Emergency Rooms
Readers of this blog know that we don’t think that ObamaCare will do anything to reduce ER overcrowding. Indeed, we think ObamaCare will increase the burden on ERs.
The latest absurdity: Booking ER appointments online. According the San Francisco Chronicle, a woman recalled seeing:
Dignity Health television commercials featuring a woman sitting in a hospital waiting room and then cutting to the same woman sitting on her living room couch as words come up on the screen: “Wait for the ER from home.”
Dignity isn’t the only network employing the strategy. In an era of increased competition driven by the nation’s Affordable Care Act, hospital executives around the country are hoping online appointments will attract patients eager to avoid long waits in a crowded and often chaotic environment.
Some critics say the online check-in system may be convenient but is not necessarily cost-effective. It could encourage patients to seek care in the costliest of settings, emergency rooms, when they should be going to less-expensive urgent care centers or medical offices, they say.
No kidding! Although hospital executives won’t admit it, that is the whole purpose of driving patients to the ER. We previously discussed an ER where one quarter of patients just got up and walked away before they were seen, because they were so frustrated by the wait. What reasonable person calls that an “emergency”? On the other hand, if hospitals can admit patients to surgery via the ER, they can bill much higher charges. We are pretty sure that most ERs are profit centers.
The ER “crisis” serves a double purpose for hospitals. On the one hand, we are sure that most ERs are profit centers. On the other hand, it gives them ammunition to lobby for more government payments. In this system, hospitals really can’t lose.
At the rate we’re going, I almost expect all health care will be delivered through the ER before very long.
The ERs are so crowded with people who shouldn’t be there. I can just imagine…
“Honey, I’m having a heart attack! Call an ambulance, and call and book a reservation at the Emergency Room.
“We got the coronary suite! And a great view of the nurses station!”
We’ve often said that in health care too much of the entrepreneurial activities are really attempts to maximize revenue against reimbursement formulas rather than competition on the basis of price and quality.
Agreed…if you’re making appointments for the ER you probably don’t need to be going. I’m sure the opening of retail clinics and urgent care centers, along with the reduced demand for emergency services because of the ACA have prompted hospital execs to find more innovative ways to keep people coming?
“We previously discussed an ER where one quarter of patients just got up and walked away before they were seen, because they were so frustrated by the wait.”
Maybe that is how you cut down on the ER visits. Make people wait so extraordinarily long, that some will get up and leave. The ones who stay are truly there for an emergency.
Could you imagine leaving the ER if you are injured? Let’s say you broke your arm and the ER is taking too long, do you just leave and wrap it up yourself at home and take a couple of Tylenol?
Having to make a ER appointment is just about as absurd as our health insurance help pay for our doctor check ups and generic meds.
“You will be redirected to the nearest VA.”
I bet that’s when they got up and left the ER.
Yeah waiting for the ER from home seems silly and like a clear indication you probably don’t need to go to the ER in the first place.
They make more money through people going through ER. Increasingly we are forgetting what the “E” in ER stands for. It really should be just for Emergencies.
One way might be to have a massive gap in waiting time between different assessed levels of ’emergency’. You show up in serious medical conditions? Immediate priority, as it is now. But if you show up with a sprained ankle or any other more ‘trivial’ injuries they should just make you sit there and tell you they’ll see you when the doctor is bored. Maybe that would cause some to desist from going to the ER.
Except as long as centers keep making higher profits from people going to the ER, this won’t happen.
Dignity Health? Really?
It used to be Catholic Healthcare West but they decided not to promote their religious affiliation, I guess.
Good decision: Look what happened to Little Sisters of the Poor!