Practice Management
Las Vegas is the latest municipality to recognize that not all 911 calls require response with a fully equipped ambulance and EMS crew. As part of a new pilot program by the Las Vegas Fire and Rescue Department, 911 operators are being trained to identify which calls really do require a full emergency response, and which could be transferred to a specially trained nurse who can guide the patient to the right level of care—including …
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Massachusetts’ secretary of Health and Human Services is on record as saying urgent care is ideally suited to help reduce overcrowding emergency rooms, at least in Boston. As a guest on Herald Radio’s Morning Meeting program, Marylou Sudders referenced a recent report that patients are waiting nearly an hour to be seen, on average, in the EDs at Boston Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her proposed solution would be to have more urgent …
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The increased wait times in emergency rooms and explosion in the popularity of urgent care have been (and continue to be) well documented. Not as much attention has been paid to why there’s so much more traffic. A study soon to be published in Academic Emergency Medicine reveals a few of the answers—and some of them support the notion that urgent care fulfills unique needs, either clinically or in terms of patient preference: Limited access …
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Missourians who still haven’t gotten the message that the emergency room is the wrong place to be for a sore throat or other nonemergent complaints are in for a rude awakening if they’re covered by Anthem. Starting this summer, Anthem will stop paying a dime for visits to Missouri EDs if the patient is deemed to have a “minor ailment” (which, in addition to sore throat, includes, rash, mild fever, and ear or eye pain—anything …
Read MoreSTATES HAVE ENACTED STATUTES, and courts have proffered an abundance of case law on the treatment of minors. There have been no reports of physicians being held liable for rendering emergent or urgent care to minors prior to obtaining parental consent. Still, informed consent issues surrounding the care and treatment of minors are often a source of confusion and are, at best, problematic. Essentially, competency to give consent is determined in the same way for …
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