Who Uses Emergency Departments?
Poor Health, Not Lack of Primary Care or Medical Insurance Found to Drive Emergency Visits
American College of Emergency Physicians
News Release - October 18, 2004
The first large-scale study of its kind finds the majority of individuals who use emergency departments have a usual source of care, medical insurance and are not poor. The biggest factor driving people to seek emergency care is poor physical and mental health…
In this study, based on a sample of nearly 50,000 adults interviewed between 2000 and 2001, 83 percent of emergency department visits were made by people who reported having a usual source of health care other than an emergency department, 85 percent reported having medical insurance, and 79 percent reported having incomes exceeding the poverty threshold. Individuals without health insurance were no more likely to have had an emergency visit than those with private health insurance, and individuals without a usual source of care were 25 percent less likely to have had an emergency visit than those with a private physician.
“Contrary to popular perception, individuals who do not have a usual source of care are actually less likely to have visited an emergency department than those who have such care,” said the study’s lead author Ellen J. Weber, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine in the division of emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “Many insurance programs, and particularly public and private HMOs, require beneficiaries to have a primary care physician, which may be expected to improve overall health and health care, but the continued rise in emergency visits implies that such programs have not had a substantial impact on overall emergency department use.”
“The mistaken belief that emergency departments are overcrowded by a small disenfranchised portion of the U.S. population can lead to misguided policy decisions and a perception by hospital administrators that emergency patients are not as valuable to the institution as patients having elective surgeries,” said Dr. Weber. “But our findings indicate that emergency departments serve as a safety net, not just for the poor and uninsured, but for mainstream Americans, and in particular those with serious and chronic illness.”
http://www.acep.org/1,34130,0.html
Comment: Clearly, the primary role of emergency departments is to serve as a safety net for mainstream Americans. Although much concern is expressed over the use of emergency departments by the disenfranchised poor and uninsured, this study confirms that emergency facilities are not being used as convenience clinics by this group. These people are simply not receiving the care that they need.
When the need for comprehensive reform is so obvious, we should not be distracted by efforts to enact misguided policies based on fundamental misperceptions.
Let’s first provide comprehensive coverage for everyone. Once health care funding is no longer the overriding issue, we can concentrate on policies that would ensure timely access to a usual source of care. Because of work conflicts and transportation issues, that might include enabling access to integrated convenience clinics. Whatever. But, at a current spending level of $1.8 trillion, we don’t need to increase funding; we need to start spending our funds more effectively.