Foregoing care due to cost | New America Blogs

HEALTH CARE: If This Is An Emergency, Please Press "Can't Afford It" New America Blogs:

From the New America Healthcare Blog ...

"Imagine being sick enough or hurt enough to rush to an emergency room—and then leaving without getting the recommended tests or treatment because you can't afford it.

"Doctors have a name for those discharges—'Against Medical Advice.' It seems to be happening more often, both in the ER and in the rest of the hospital as health costs rise and insurance coverage falls.

"MSNBC interviewed several doctors and patients about how the economy is affecting emergency care. A patient with acute appendicitis needing emergency surgery who waited for his mother to drive him to the hospital so he wouldn't have to pay for an ambulance. A patient with an infected kidney stone. People with chest pains who were not in the throes of a life-threatening heart attack that very minute but who couldn't or wouldn't follow up to find out what the pains signaled. A 31 year old knocked unconscious in a bike crash, who asked about the cost of the recommended follow up, only to be told by the ER doctor, that she was 'a physician, not an accountant.' Declining treatment, he still got a $600 bill."

There's more at New America and at MSNBC...

I would only add this, from a wise NY Times reader:

Mr. Krugman rightly notes that emergency room care cannot substitute for health insurance since the cost will be billed directly to the patient.

There is another reason emergency rooms cannot provide adequate health care. Emergency rooms are for emergencies. They can treat a patient in a diabetic coma, but they cannot provide continuing help in managing diabetes. They can treat a full-blown asthma attack, but they cannot provide the medications needed to manage asthma daily.

They can treat a woman who has gone into early labor, but they cannot provide prenatal care.Emergency rooms cannot offer any help for managing Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or cancer. On a more basic level, they cannot provide eyeglasses, hearing aids or dentures.

Republican claims that no American is without access to health care because “you can just go to an emergency room” are openly false as well as appallingly callous.

Sphere: Related Content