The Old Man and the E.R.
The old man knew what it was. At first, he hoped to wait until tomorrow. That wasn’t meant to be. He had to go now, and his regular Doctor was too far away; especially at the time of day. The nearest Emergency Room (E.R.) it was. By this time, he could barely walk, but felt that he was alright to drive.
The walk from the parking garage to the hospital front entry took all he had. There, the security guy told him that he couldn’t go through to the E.R., would have to go around to the back of the hospital. The old man told him that he couldn’t, couldn’t even make it back to his car in the parking garage; told him that he was having heart problems, was in great distress.
Slowly they made it through the hospital to the E.R. There, the old man told the security guy at the E.R. entry of his malady; the guy handed him a form on a clipboard to fill out. When finished, he was told to have a seat in the waiting room. It was 4:30 PM. Three other patients were in the waiting room. One obviously high, one mental, and a third about whom he couldn’t even hazard a guess.
5:00 PM He’s asking himself, will they see me in time?
5:30 PM He’s thinking, must be really backed up in there; can I hold out?
6:00 PM He’s thinking that he should have stayed home and hoped that he could make it through the night.
6:30 PM He’s thinking, all this is only making it worse.
7:00 PM He’s asking himself, should I raise hell? Am I even capable of doing that?
7:30 PM The nurse calls out the his name.
Numbers he had never seen. She couldn’t believe them either. Took a second set of readings, then sent him into the E.R. Made it! Relief. Damn, that was close, he thought. Unbeknownst to him, those unbelievable numbers were indicative of an heretofore undetected malady. Looking back, he wondered if the nurse had understood their significance? How qualified was she?
From then on, the he couldn’t have asked for better care. The E.R. professionals were just that. The hospital was all he could expect.
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Of course, the E.R. was one of those operated by TeamHealth; a part of Blackstone. The infamous TeamHealth, Blackstone of egregious billings. Can it be that the hospital can avoid liability with this arrangement?
Later, the old man recounted that he felt lucky to have survived this E.R. experience. Opined that hospitals should not be able to avoid liability; said he thought that they should be required to staff and manage their own E.R.s.
Sick care has the most government regulations of any other industry. As a result, the quality of the service has plummeted along with the price skyrocketing. Anything the state touches turns to sh!t.
Joe:
Anything private Equity touches turns to garage as they milk the profits and equity out of it.
They were also among the first to critique Schrock’s portrayal of Steward as a victim of external financial circumstances. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell told the court in a filing that Steward had “extracted value from Massachusetts,” had “over-leveraged its hospitals” and “continued to enrich its investors and management” while putting off its vendor obligations.
The state’s view of Steward’s business has been echoed by federal regulators, lawmakers and clinicians alike, many of whom have pointed to the system’s prior private equity owner Cerberus Capital Management as the source of its financial distress.
Ken:
I had a gall bladder attack. First ever a decade ago. I went to Med Central in Lexington Mansfield, Ohio. The had hired out their doctors. They kept me for a bit and I was in a bed freezing till they covered with several blankets. The hired-out doctor sent me back to my apartment (working out of state) and said I had acid indigestion. That was on a Friday. On Monday I was back again and in horrific pain.
They kept me and removed a faulty gall bladder. The entire weekend I was in pain.
I had open heart surgery at Med Central also on a Monday. No screwing around then. The Friday before, I went to my PC doctor. He ran an EKG and everything appeared ok. If he had done a blood enzyme draw he would have seen my enzymes were several times higher than normal. I would have ended up at U of M instead of Med Central. Med Central had a Cleveland Clinic surgeon specializing in hearts (they found I had one).
I sneezed the first day and I thought my chest would explode.
The first episode, the AW ER doc just wanted to dump me. And he did. Never saw him again. We would have had a conversation. The second time they were far better with the regular staff. The same with my open-heart surgery.
I can go from mild mannered old guy to a well-educated jerk in seconds. I will not be talked down to and that is what some of the issues are with these hired guns.
Maybe collapsing would have elicited a different response.
I have been to the ER 4 times, twice for myself and twice with my husband. The best experience was in our little town, only one other patient came in while we were there. It helps to have less than 20K people in the whole county. When down south where we have our Kaiser health care, ER trips take forever. If you aren’t obviously dying, you wait, and in the middle of an urban area there are always more urgent cases to move ahead of you. Broke my arm about 1 pm, got to the ER about 1:40. Arm was set surgically about midnight. Part of that was waiting for an OR to get open. OTOH, my husband’s prostate closed up on him, so we went to the ER. He added about 10 hours to the wait by coming north to pick me up before going, so by the time we got there he was close to a whole day backed up. They came to get him within half an hour. We were out of there in less than 3 hours, and a good deal of that was waiting for someone to do the release. It helps to have an easy, sure fix.
Wow! No liability hospital. Never knew it existed. Smart business men. Pass out all the garbage for premium prices. We shall reach third world status yet!
ed:
Sorry, got to do that otherwise, the real pitas would show up and do more. Thank you for your comment
I have been to the ER three times.
The first I just showed up. They did not decide to do my appendectomy until after admitting me 11 hours later. The appendix had already burst and I spent a week in the hospital.
The second I had a blood clot. My PCP sent me for an emergency ultrasound after an urgent office visit. I was in the OR by midnight.
The third I had my gall bladder removed. I was transported the 10 blocks from home by an ambulance.
My take from my experience and similar stories by others is don’t just show up at an ER on your own. Being referred or transported elevates the priority.