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Post by agito on Jan 1, 2009 15:44:46 GMT -6
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jan 1, 2009 18:16:58 GMT -6
Lovely.
Though I generally agree with the author's sentiment, I do need to correct one error in the article.
Hospitals cannot "just stabilize you in the ER and send you home," if you have a potential, and immediately life-threatening threatening condition. (For example, a heart attack is an immediately life-threatening condition. Terminal cancer is not--unless it has caused an immediately life-threatening complication, such as septic shock or bowel obstruction.)
If a patient has an immediately life-threatening condition, the hospital must either admit the patient, or find a hospital that will accept the patient (but only after he is stable enough for transfer.)
An Emergency Room Physician cannot legally send a hospitalization-requiring patient to another hospital, simply because the patient cannot pay. As of 1993, doing so would incur a $50K fine each, for both the hospital and the physician. (I had the riot act read to me once on this issue.)
By law, a hospital Emergency Room cannot refuse a patient who makes it into the Emergency Room. And again, a patient with an immediately life-threatening condition cannot be sent home. And that still applies, even if the hospital claims they thought the patient could survive for another day or 2. If there is a potential, immediately life-threatening condition, even one that is not likely to cause death in the next day or 2 (such as congestive heart failure), the hospital must admit or transfer to another hospital.
Sending such a patient home is illegal.
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