A Market is Emerging for ER Care
Convenience
Medical entrepreneurs are remaking the emergency room experience. They’re pulling the emergency room out of the hospital and planting it in the strip mall.
It’s called a “free-standing ER,” and some 400 of them opened across the country in the past four years.
Amenities
The waiting room, furnished with brown leather armchairs and a coffee station worthy of a spa, is empty because patients are usually seen right away.
Expense
Free-standing ERs can make a lot of money because they charge ER prices. A visit that might have cost $200 at an urgent-care center can cost four or five times as much at an ER.
Source:Kaiser Health News.
Great, let’s make more care accessible at extremely high costs. Great business for sure.
“Expense Free-standing ERs can make a lot of money because they charge ER prices. A visit that might have cost $200 at an urgent-care center can cost four or five times as much at an ER.”
Then why are people going there?
…because they need care and it’s an emergency…
Dewaine, the service is good, and it’s specialized…that’s why people go.
It’s not like people have good alternatives.
the price will fall if people have options
and better options
It is getting more expensive, because it is specialized…they only deal with emergency care. = scarcity = higher costs.
That is not true.
How so?
Several issues: Americans want McDonald’s medicine. We want to get instant care for almost anything, emergency or not.
Secondly, doctor’s offices are either not willing or able to make room for minor emergencies or urgent care. This is not going to improve either as there will be less docs for more patients.
Unless someone is paying something out of pocket, they don’t care how much they are spending for a service. So if it costs more to see an urgent care rather than wait to see the family doc, who cares?