Posted on 04/01/2009 3:34:17 PM PDT by BGHater
Just nine people accounted for nearly 2,700 of the emergency room visits in the Austin area during the past six years at a cost of $3 million to taxpayers and others, according to a report. The patients went to hospital emergency rooms 2,678 times from 2003 through 2008, said the report from the nonprofit Integrated Care Collaboration, a group of health care providers who care for low-income and uninsured patients.
"What we're really trying to do is find out who's using our emergency rooms ... and find solutions," said Ann Kitchen, executive director of the group, which presented the report last week to the Travis County Healthcare District board.
The average emergency room visit costs $1,000. Hospitals and taxpayers paid the bill through government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, Kitchen said.
Eight of the nine patients have drug abuse problems, seven were diagnosed with mental health issues and three were homeless. Five are women whose average age is 40, and four are men whose average age is 50, the report said, the Austin American-Statesman reported Wednesday.
"It's a pretty significant issue," said Dr. Christopher Ziebell, chief of the emergency department at University Medical Center at Brackenridge, which has the busiest ERs in the area.
Solutions include referring some frequent users to mental health programs or primary care doctors for future care, Ziebell said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I wonder how many were...illegals.
No mention of ethnicity or citizenship....
One must wonder why?
</libtard>
Creedmore or Terrell would be cheaper, right?
Or why Texas and not ANY Los Angeles County Hospital.
If we build it[Make it Free], they will come.
That’s 450 visits a year. Maybe a whole bunch of people are using 9 people’s ids.
That works out to a weekly visit, every week, for 5 years, for each of these persons.
I recall people[Atlanta] using a method of calling the ER for ‘difficulty breathing’ and getting a free ride downtown to the hospital.
Then, you take the bus back. Works out pretty well.
hangnails and just cuz they were lonely
That’s 450 visits a year. Maybe a whole bunch of people are using 9 people’s ids.
Ding, ding, YOU ARE THE WINNER!
thats a lot of visits. are they sure they didnt let others use their names and such?
Those 9 people averaged 300 visits each. Over six years, that is 50 visits a year. Roughly once a week.
Either:
1. Asthma attacks every week and no doctor
2. Someone has an ID card and 50 people have a copy, thus it is a multiplier effect of identity theft / fraud
3. Someone is entering in “Jose Rodriquez” every time someone by that name shows up, and all of these people are getting listed in the same account. Not Identity Theft, just a system merging identities. This would be incompetence.
4. The John Doe account at the hospital gets everyone who is homeless, and the hospital just puts John Does in that same account. Deliberate identity merging by staff.
I just did the math.
I ain’t hip to all this subtrifuge!
These stories grab headlines, but the outrage is that large numbers of people abuse emergency rooms to a lesser individual extent that is crippling in concert. One person kicking 300 times vs 100,000 people kicking a few times apiece. It is especially bad in Canada and the UK, where such parasitism extends to the middle and upper classes (they sit for hours in the emergency waiting room to see a doctor for their minor health problem, instead of waiting days or weeks to see their doctor - if they are lucky enough to have a GP, OB, or pediatrician assigned to them).
I’m getting 50 visits (average) per year ... or roughly once a week. 2700/9 = 300/6 = 50 ???
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