Government Possibly Not Smart?

[Winter_123]

Just had my lunch and was reading an article in one of the local freebie newspapers about a fellow I know. He is a physician assistant and just opened up an Express Care/Urgent Care place in a nearby town. There used to be one there and lots and lots of people used it rather than the emergency room. It was located in the hospital at that time.

Anyway, the physician assistant and the doc who own this new urgent care place said that the reason that the one in the hospital was closed was because the government would not allow them to have an express care facility located right in the hospital next to the emergency room unless they charged the same fee for both. WTF? I thought we were supposed to be helping people to avoid the emergency room.

Whatever. The government is here to help. Whether this is state government thing or a fed thing or a reimbursement thing I dont know. Frigging nuts is what it is.

 

[ksigmtsu]

Thats nuts. The first thing I wanted in a health care bill was a law making the desk nurse have to turn people away at the ER for non emergencies unless they want to pay it out of pocket if it really was a non emergency so that people would go to clinics instead. I have this dumbass sister-in-law that took her kids to the hospital ER 5 times in the last 3 months for upset stomachs and one time the flu. Shes on tenncare (tennessee medicaid). No reason not to use the ER for her doctor, and let us all pay for it.