AMA, against medical advice!

As someone who currently works in a hospital, I find nothing wrong with this idea.

If a Doctor wants to admit you, it's for a reason.

I believe this idea will help keep down the number of people that come into the ER for a common cold, or for something they should be handling at home.

You wouldn't believe the number of people that come in for "no good reason".

Jamie

 

So, umm, isn't there a poll in the poll forum?

 

How will this keep people from coming to ER's for a common cold unless it becomes hospital policy to admit anyone into the hospital who comes to ER for anything?

I have never, and am stil not, an advocate of going to a communist form of medicine, but sometimes... the rules, deductables, exclusions, inclusions, collusions, affiliations, referrals, scales and limits... I'm not as sure any more.

 

For full page, click this sentence

 

Emergency rooms are often jammed with people who are not having emergencies, but simply need care or a quick check. Colds that are not in babies or the very elderly are not emergencies. Even in babies and the elderly unless there is bronchial involvement or a high fever or some other symptom that this may be more than a simple cold, it is not an emergency.

A long-time close friend of ours is an internist. One of his comments a number of years ago has stayed with me: about half the people who come to see him with complaints simply need a pat on the shoulder and someone to talk to. All of our insurance rates are up because of these people.

I just got my notice of my Kaiser Permanente premium, per month, for just me, for 2006. It's about $450 a month. Because I have diabetes and the medications are so expensive, and because I have surgery for carpal tunnel coming up, I just view it as paying for my surgeries and medications on the installment plan!

But if more people simply used common sense and stayed away from liquor and drugs, I'm betting my insurance premiums, and everyone else's, would be less than 50% what they are now...

And if people washed their hands...and kept their kids home from school when they were sick...and stayed home themselves when they were sick...

Take another hundred dollars a month off!

Emergency rooms are for emergencies. That may sound strange, but that is what they were and are designed to handle! If the doctor wants to admit you, he has a reason. If you refuse, why should we ALL pay for that via our insurance rates?

 

Keep your kids home when they're sick?????

Not more than 3 days unless you want to be thrown into truancy court!

This is literally our school district's policy on school attendence. So if we don't have the money to go to the doctor or we work and can't get off to see a doctor during the day guess what our choices are?

A) go to the ER where they well treat the child even if you don't have insurance.

or

B) send the kid to school sick

Guess what 90% of the parents do? They send their kids to school sick which only makes the problem worse.

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Back on topic now.

The hospitals are doing this because of liability issues. If the doc thinks you're having a heart attack and you insist that it is just indigestion who is your family going to sue if you walk out and die?

I don't blame the docs or the insurance companies for this one.

 

When you don't have a doctor and your child has an ear infection or is running a fever of 105, you go to the ER. It's your only choice, apart from not getting your child treated. Since state patients are seen last, even if you're standing there bleeding and the person in front of you,who has insurance or is paying cash, only stubbed their toe, you're seen after them.
But...even if it's not an emergency, if you live where I lived and your child needed a doctor while you were on a medical card, you went to the ER. Even those that had doctors usually ended up using the ER, because medicaid appts were the lowest priority, so if your child was ill and needed care, the probability of getting in within a couple days was very low. That doesn't work if your child has a bleeding wound, a high fever, a uti, whatever it is that isn't an immediate emergency but will be without care.

 

We should have national medical insurance for everyone. As it is, we make the hospitals treat everybody anyway, and they are forced to make everybody who has insurance pay for those who don't. Its still socialized medicine, because nobody is turned away, and its financed by this effective "tax" on the wealthy sick.

 

Keep in mind that if you go to the ER and receive medical treatment, you're financially responsible for that treatment, regardless of whether or not you're admitted into the hospital, and regardless of whether you have insurance or not.

 

That doesn't mean you must take them to the ER. Seeing a private practicioner is what I do when my kids are sick for more than a few days.

 

What I used to do was call the school and say something like "Johnny is still running a slight fever and coughing. I know he has been out three days now. Do you want him back or do you want me to wait?"

Works just fine.

 

Doctors don't usually admit a patient unless there is a valid reason. I've been to the emergency room several times in the last 10 years, and was admitted twice. Each time, I was so sick that I was more than willing to trust the doctor's decision.

I agree with Paul of Eugene that we need to have national health insurance. As it is, those of us who do have insurance are already paying for those who do not have insurance.

 

According to some recent national polls, health care is the #1 concern of American adults. So, it is not surprising that the issues are emotional and often complicated. Couple peoples' general concerns with the inherent complications and difficulties of administrating effective and efficient health care, the issues become even more overwhelming and try even the most humble of hearts.

That being said, I am uncomfortable with some the things said on this issue.

Someone was said to have said, "about half the people who come to see him with complaints simply need a pat on the shoulder and someone to talk to. All of our insurance rates are up because of these people." If this is true (and I imagine it may be to some degree, though maybe not as much as 50%), then I have some questions for Christians: Is it really that great a burden to support a means that brings some comfort and encouragement to someone? Isn't it reasonable to assume that if they had some better place to go to ease their pain they would have gone there? Is there something the Church could do to alleviate the burden on the Emergency Rooms in these cases, or is our nation too secularized to permit it? Does it demonstrate Christian love towards peoples' needs to complain about our personal costs for health care?

It has been said, "But if more people simply used common sense and stayed away from liquor and drugs, I'm betting my insurance premiums, and everyone else's, would be less than 50% what they are now..." Is it really true that there is a such thing as "common" sense? Isn't our society embracing the idea that individual "sense" is relative to each person's own perspectives? Does not our Bible tell us that our sinful nature leads us to do stupid things, and not only do stupid things, but deceive us into thinking that they aren't stupid? Is it not true that being under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs in itself impairs one's ability to exercise good judgement, even the ability to discern one should stop using alcohol/drugs? Finally, considering the host of myriad factors that go into the cost of medical insurance, I doubt that it is prudent to gamble with one's obligations on them (not to mention the dangers of gambling in and of itself).

As for how to handle our children when they are ill, the answers are not easy to dictate for every family. For example, my oldest son is autistic and goes to a special education pre-school (part of the public school system). Now, when he gets a mild cold, as long as he has not vomited or had a fever in the past 24 hours, or does not have a productive cough, then we are encouraged to send him to school. First, any break in his routine adversely affects his development. Second, shielding our children, even ourselves from the health hazards only delays our body's natural ability to build defenses against them, until a time is reached when it is not possible to build such defenses. We could keep him home until he shows no symptoms, but I doubt that is really the best thing for him. The other children, as far as I am able to know, are at no greater risk than my son, and we can provide him with medications to reduce or eliminate symptoms.

If symptoms persist or worsen to a point where we must keep him home, we then phone his pediatrician and make a walk-in appointment (hopefully one that I do not have to take off from work and lose pay - which is a factor to consider when I get sick). These considerations are very important to my family, as I am the only one bringing the income and the only one to provide transportation. We have medical insurance, and we have state assistance to pick up where my insurance stops, due to our current financial conditions. Is it really the Christian way to think to ask me to keep my child home, which might be worse for him than dealing with a cold? And my situation is mine. Some other family will have a completely different situation. I have students in my class who probably can't afford a regular physician, so there's no one to go except the emergency room. Is it really the Christian way to think to expect them to just stay home and suffer, with no medications just so the healthcare system isn't burdened? Sure, people go to the emergency room for reasons that aren't really emergencies. Still, thanks to our societal habits, and media practices, some people simply aren't educated well enough to know the difference. [Enough on that soapbox.]

Finally, someone said, "Keep in mind that if you go to the ER and receive medical treatment, you're financially responsible for that treatment, regardless of whether or not you're admitted into the hospital, and regardless of whether you have insurance or not." It should be remembered: financial responsibility attaches itself even when the patient does not give consent for treatment, even when the patient is not capable of giving consent for treatment, and without knowing ahead of time just how much obligation will be incurred. Even with the consent, healthcare providers will say that they cannot tell you how much treatment will cost before administering that treatment; thus people are being forced into financial obligations blindly, and without any opportunity to consider the financial implications of their options. So, they just say, "yes," because the doctor says you need it, and hope insurance will pay enough to not leave you and your family in debt for the next 30 years (and if it is surgery, you can bet that you will be in debt for some time to come if you are not financially independant). I'll be honest, I often wonder why my doctors get to live so comfortably while I find it so difficult to be able to pay them - why my family doctors get to go home every day to their own home, while my family must depend on our parents for a place to live. My personal solution is to just trust in God to provide the "someway, somehow" to keep us healthy enough to serve His will for our lives, and to provide the means to meet our obligations. Is there really anything more that a faithful Christian could ask?

Health-care in America - a real faith builder if you let it be.