“If you insure them, they will come.” Those words might as well be the mantra of hospitals across the country, because they can expect an onslaught of customers thanks to the expansion of health insurance under Obamacare. A recent study published in Science showed increased emergency room use among people in Oregon who became eligible for Medicaid, compared to others who, literally by the luck of the draw, were not chosen to be eligible. With many ERs already overcrowded, emergency room clinicians will be forced to send some patients home that are not ready and to admit other patients to the hospital that do not need such care. In fact, Medicare analyses show that almost half of unnecessary expenses result from brief and unnecessary hospital admissions.
How can already busy emergency rooms efficiently handle all this extra business?…(Read more and view comments at Forbes)
