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The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills

Julie Creswell, Reed Abelson, and Margot Sanger-Katz | The New York Times | July 24, 2017

Early last year, executives at a small hospital an hour north of Spokane, Wash., started using a company called EmCare to staff and run their emergency room. The hospital had been struggling to find doctors to work in its E.R., and turning to EmCare was something hundreds of other hospitals across the country had done. That's when the trouble began. Before EmCare, about 6 percent of patient visits in the hospital's emergency room were billed for the most complex, expensive level of care. After EmCare arrived, nearly 28 percent for the highest-level billing code...

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To ER Is Human...To Build an App to Find the Right Caregiver Is...

By Kim Bellard | September 29, 2015

I was prompted to think of ERs by a WSJ op-ed by Dr. Paul Auerbach.  In it, he argues that non-emergency visits to the ER aren't going to stop, much as we might wish patients to do a better job of evaluating when they are actually suffering an "emergency."  He notes the limited access to timely care from primary care physicians, and how it is not reasonable to expect people to make such rational evaluations when they or their loved ones are suffering. As he says, "You can't teach patients economics lessons when they don't feel well."

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