Posted on 01/02/2014 1:23:12 PM PST by Lorianne
A new study has found that people enrolled recently in Medicaid went to the emergency room 40 percent more frequently than others, often seeking help for conditions that could be treated less expensively in a doctor's office or an urgent care clinic.
The research, published Thursday by the journal Science, comes as millions of Americans gain health insurance this week under the federal health care law, many of them through Medicaid.
The findings help inform a long-running debate about the effect of expanding Medicaid and suggest that hospitals and health officials around the nation should be prepared for an increase in emergency room trips in the coming months.
The study is the third to arise from a limited expansion of Medicaid in Oregon five years ago. Demand exceeded the available funding, so the state used a lottery to randomly choose people for coverage from a waiting list. The lottery created two groups of similar people, one consisting of new Medicaid patients, the other a comparison group of people who weren't selected. It gave scientists a rare chance to evaluate the program in a randomized, controlled study — the gold-standard for scientific research.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
That's unexpected. Who would have guessed that when you give certain people something for "free" they would not care how much it might cost?
These folks are used to going to the emergency room for treatment. They are not in the mode of employing a doctor’s office.
Now, don’t mistake me for an Obama supporter, but wasn’t this a problem Michelle was trying to deal with when she was in Hospital mode in Chicago? Divert the less ill away from expensive ER treatments into clinics? I recall she got roasted for the practice.
She got roasted for running a program which was supplying one-way bus tickets to OTHER HOSPITALS!
Enrolling them increases the demand for services, but the Medicaid program can’t service that demand, so...
In most states, Medicaid is sort of a placebo, providing mediocre care. Reimbursements to physicians are so low that many refuse to take Medicaid patients, and they frequently end up in these cattle call clinics that are scams. In minority districts, Medicaid dentists were actively recruiting patients and providing unneeded services. Sadly, Obiecare does little to address the real issue which is providing good quality medical care to the poor.
She got roasted for the hipocrisy. She and her husband support policies forcing hospitals to treat people who will not pay and her job was to rid the hospital of those very people.
DUH!! Who knew??? They could have asked any physician or nurse that has worked in the ER. Medicaid patient come in all times of the day for a cold,itching,constipation et. Been going on for years and now is going to be a disaster. Get ready for longer wait times in the ER.
Alos in some star (like the one I work in) Medicaid pays the hospital ZERO for non emergency care provided in the ER. I would say 95% is non emergent care.
Oh really? Who would have thought it?
Hypocrisy.
This is going well.
(Gomer Pyle voice) Surprise, surprise.
establish an immediate care office associated with the hospital. Triage patients and divert to appropriate level of care.
LOL - yep - the only folks who don’t get it are journalists.
It’s why none of these scribes could find any examples of people being denied medical care when they were pushing for Obamacare. Our ‘poor’ were going to emergency rooms for chest colds and being charged $3,000 for 15 minutes with the doctor. Then the hospital wrote off the debt as an unpaid bill and everyone did just fine.
With Obamacare people really will die for lack of medical care, but the same idiots in the MSM who would have sold their mothers to get a story about a death caused by lack of medical care BEFORE Obamacare - will REFUSE to cover deaths after Obamacare. Eff the New York Times and Washington Post...
LOL - yep - the only folks who don’t get it are journalists.
It’s why none of these scribes could find any examples of people being denied medical care when they were pushing for Obamacare. Our ‘poor’ were going to emergency rooms for chest colds and being charged $3,000 for 15 minutes with the doctor. Then the hospital wrote off the debt as an unpaid bill and everyone did just fine.
With Obamacare people really will die for lack of medical care, but the same idiots in the MSM who would have sold their mothers to get a story about a death caused by lack of medical care BEFORE Obamacare - will REFUSE to cover deaths after Obamacare. Eff the New York Times and Washington Post...
Hey Jonathan J. Cooper, you’re an idiot.
What’s really interesting is buried further down in the study: they found no improvement in health status.
All you have to do is triage one of them wrong and their lawyer will own the hospital. There’s been a need for enabling legislation to protect ERs that divert non-emergencies for decades now, but getting anyone to back it hasn’t been doable. What you can do is put your clinic on the same lobby, staff it with a couple of nurse practitioners, and let the patients choose it on their own. Make a flat 20 dollar charge too, and the patients will self-select.
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