Health News
- More Dental Patients Using Ers, Showing Lack Of Dental Coverage, Shortage Of Dentists And The Stepchild Status Of Oral Health
More patients are going to hospital emergency rooms for dental care, illustrating how oral health remains the stepchild of the health system despite health-care reform. "An analysis of the most recent federal data by the American Dental Association shows...
- Hospitals Say Too Many Of The Newly Insured Are Using Emergency Rooms For Primary Care; State Says It's Working On The Problem
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News More people with health insurance, a shortage of primary-care physicians and a steep learning curve for the newly insured all add up to more patients than ever using emergency rooms for non-emergency purposes. More...
- Emergency Docs Give Ky. 'emergency Care Environment' A D Grade, 47th In U.s., But A C (12th) For Actual Delivery Of Care
Kentucky's overall emergency-care environment, including its medical-malpractice laws, is the fifth worst in the nation, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians. ACEP gave Kentucky a grade of ?D? and ranked it 47th in the nation...
- Er At Louisville's University Hospital Says It Is Pushed To Brink; Many Other Hospitals Seeing More Emergency Patients
Louisville's University Hospital is straining to meet the vastly increased demand of patients coming to the emergency room. Last year, there were 58,010 visits to the ER to the facility, which is meant to act as a safety net for indigent care. That's...
- Rural Emergency Rooms Frequented By The Poor And Uninsured
A new report from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality shows that low-income adults accounted for 56 percent of the 8 million rural emergency room visits in 2008. In nonrural hospitals, low-income adults accounted for only 30 percent...
Health News
Doctors in emergency rooms say they are busier since Obamacare began; hospitals struggle to handle extra patients
Nearly half of emergency-room doctors say their ERs have seen an increase in patients since health reform went into effect, and 86 percent say they expect the increase to continue, according to a poll by the American College of Emergency Physicians. Of the 1,845 completed surveys, 9 percent said ER visits had increased greatly and 37 percent said they had increased slightly. When asked what they think will happen over the next three years, 41 percent said visits will increase greatly and 45 percent said they will increase slightly. (ACEP graphic)
"Dr. Jay Kaplan, a member of ACEP's board of directors, said he wasn't surprised by the findings given the large influx or Medicaid enrollees and the difficulty in locating primary-care doctors who will see those patients," Paul Demko reports for Modern Healthcare. Kaplan told him, ?When people get insurance, they feel like they deserve healthcare. When they deserve health care, and there's nobody else they can see, they come to us.?
But some hospitals say many patients are going to the ER for ailments that are not emergencies, Laura Ungar reports for The Courier-Journal. Lewis Perkins, vice president of patient care and chief nursing officer at Louisville's Norton Hospital, said the emergency room is seeing 100 more patients per month, an increase of 12 percent. "We're seeing patients who probably should be seen at our (immediate-care centers)," he told Ungar. "And we're seeing this across the system."
ER visits at the University of Louisville Hospital are up 18 percent, while Dr. Ryan Stanton of Lexington, president of the Kentucky chapter of the ER physicians' group, said ER services are up 7.5 percent in that city. He told Ungar, "It's a perfect storm here. We've given people an ATM card in a town with no ATMs." (Read more)
Phil Galewitz of Kaiser Health News reports that a study in Massachusetts following its Obamacare-like expansion showed an initial surge in ER use followed by a decline over several years. Hospital officials around the country told him that the biggest impact of the expansion of Medicaid is that patients can now go to a primary-care doctor instead of the emergency room for routine care.
"Dr. Jay Kaplan, a member of ACEP's board of directors, said he wasn't surprised by the findings given the large influx or Medicaid enrollees and the difficulty in locating primary-care doctors who will see those patients," Paul Demko reports for Modern Healthcare. Kaplan told him, ?When people get insurance, they feel like they deserve healthcare. When they deserve health care, and there's nobody else they can see, they come to us.?
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| 77 percent of respondents said their ER is not prepared for an increase in patients |
ER visits at the University of Louisville Hospital are up 18 percent, while Dr. Ryan Stanton of Lexington, president of the Kentucky chapter of the ER physicians' group, said ER services are up 7.5 percent in that city. He told Ungar, "It's a perfect storm here. We've given people an ATM card in a town with no ATMs." (Read more)
Phil Galewitz of Kaiser Health News reports that a study in Massachusetts following its Obamacare-like expansion showed an initial surge in ER use followed by a decline over several years. Hospital officials around the country told him that the biggest impact of the expansion of Medicaid is that patients can now go to a primary-care doctor instead of the emergency room for routine care.
- More Dental Patients Using Ers, Showing Lack Of Dental Coverage, Shortage Of Dentists And The Stepchild Status Of Oral Health
More patients are going to hospital emergency rooms for dental care, illustrating how oral health remains the stepchild of the health system despite health-care reform. "An analysis of the most recent federal data by the American Dental Association shows...
- Hospitals Say Too Many Of The Newly Insured Are Using Emergency Rooms For Primary Care; State Says It's Working On The Problem
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News More people with health insurance, a shortage of primary-care physicians and a steep learning curve for the newly insured all add up to more patients than ever using emergency rooms for non-emergency purposes. More...
- Emergency Docs Give Ky. 'emergency Care Environment' A D Grade, 47th In U.s., But A C (12th) For Actual Delivery Of Care
Kentucky's overall emergency-care environment, including its medical-malpractice laws, is the fifth worst in the nation, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians. ACEP gave Kentucky a grade of ?D? and ranked it 47th in the nation...
- Er At Louisville's University Hospital Says It Is Pushed To Brink; Many Other Hospitals Seeing More Emergency Patients
Louisville's University Hospital is straining to meet the vastly increased demand of patients coming to the emergency room. Last year, there were 58,010 visits to the ER to the facility, which is meant to act as a safety net for indigent care. That's...
- Rural Emergency Rooms Frequented By The Poor And Uninsured
A new report from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality shows that low-income adults accounted for 56 percent of the 8 million rural emergency room visits in 2008. In nonrural hospitals, low-income adults accounted for only 30 percent...