Freestanding Emergency Rooms Get Bum Rap

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Freestanding emergency rooms are taking it on the chin in the media as the low hanging fruit that some businesses and consumers want to blame for their out-of-pocket health care expenses, but the facts and objective, generally accepted business principles don’t tell that story. What is the true story?

There are 136.3 million ER visits annually in the United States.

45 percent of American’s require an ER visit every year.

Only 16.2 million (11.9 percent) require an actual hospital admission or hospital based services.

73 percent of patients wait longer than 15 minutes to be seen in the ER.

 88 percent of emergencies can be handled and dispositioned efficiently and appropriately by board certified/board eligible emergency medicine physicians alone. Insurance companies (and hospital systems) are consolidating and narrowing networks and decreasing access to In-Network Providers to contain cost and boost profits.

Average cost for an ER visit nationwide — $2,000.

Average bronze plan deductible in 2016 — $6,000.

Legislators and patients need to be acutely aware that there are forces at play that prefer that you “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

Here is the cold, hard truth that insurance companies and mega-hospital systems don’t want you to know:

They want you (consumers and businesses) to pay as much out of your own pocket as you possibly can. They want to dominate the marketplace so that you have no options. They sell insurance plans that are impossible to understand with deductibles that most cannot afford. They know the facts above.

They use the media to influence legislators, businesses and patients in the hopes of stamping out the competition because they fear that efficient operators will force them to have more competitive rates and will prevent them from restricting patient access.

Freestanding emergency rooms are better, faster and cheaper.

Business owners should be keenly aware of this simple principle — if fair market competition is eliminated, your costs won’t go down. They will sky rocket. Don’t be fooled by the insurance industry managing your plan. Businesses can get better rates if they contract directly with providers instead of going through an insurance company attempting to create a narrow network.

Options for care promotes fair trade. Competition creates competitive pricing.

Texas patients demand more than paying top dollar to wait in a crowded emergency room. They deserve much more in an emergency. Freestanding emergency rooms deliver what Texans deserve. That is quality care in a timely manner at a fair price.

Stand by your emergency medicine physicians this coming legislative session and protect fair trade in Texas and in Texas medicine. Emergency medicine physicians are standing by for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Dr. Carrie de Moor is an emergency physician, and serves as the president of the American College of Emergency Physicians Freestanding Emergency Centers Section, and chief executive officer of Code 3 Emergency Partners.
 
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