A market based solution to health care costs
This is what y'all conservative types are asking for, right?
Some Finding No Room at the ER
Screening Out Non-Urgent Cases Stirs Controversy
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 26, 2004; Page A01
DENVER -- It's not the heart attacks or stabbings that alarm Norman Paradis. It's the minor maladies, the daily deluge of coughs, colds, toothaches and even hangnails that clog his emergency room.
As the provider of last resort, hospital emergency departments across America have for decades accepted thousands of truly non-urgent cases and swallowed the cost. For the most part, the patients have nowhere else to go, no insurance and no money.
That is starting to change. University of Colorado Hospital, where Paradis works, is leading the way on a controversial solution -- weeding out the people with bumps and scrapes so it can devote more time and resources to serious, life-threatening traumas and, also, to paying customers.
Officials here say its 15-month-old system of medical screening, or "triaging out," could go a long way in easing the financial strains that have forced hundreds of emergency departments to shut down in the last decade. But many in the health care profession call it a callous, greedy and shortsighted maneuver that puts a greater burden on neighboring clinics and hospitals -- all at the ultimate expense of the working poor.
Under the new policy, University hospital demands partial payment up front from non-emergency patients who seek treatment in the ER. For some, including Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, the fee is a small cash co-payment; insurance pays the rest. For the uninsured, however, the charge can be a few hundred dollars -- money many don't have. So they leave, toting a list of low-cost clinics in the area.
Rather than being a remedy, many argue, medical screening is a symptom of much of what ails America's health system.
