With over 800,000 residents, Gwinnett County is the most populous county in America without an open heart program. Gwinnett Medical Center has been approved by the Georgia Department of Community Health to offer open heart services, but Emory University Hospital has filed a lawsuit to block this approval.
Emory is arguing that there is no “need” for Gwinnett County to have open heart services because heart attack victims can drive to downtown Atlanta or Decatur to obtain treatment at one of Emory’s hospitals.
The Gwinnett Legislative Delegation held a hearing this week to draw attention to Emory’s actions. Emory was invited to participate but refused.
The Delegation plans to hold follow up hearings on a case in which Emory allegedly refused to treat a Gwinnett County heart attack victim.
Georgia’s CON laws were revised last year to prevent hospitals like Emory from using frivolous appeals to delay the offering of clearly needed services. Has Emory now made the case for repealing the CON law entirely?
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“Has Emory now made the case for repealing the CON law entirely?”
Yes
Would this be the “rationing” we keep hearing about?
This is the same kind of crap that has gone on for far too long, in far too many places.
Fayette County probably waited 15 to 20 extra years to get its hospital open because hospitals in neighboring counties each said they could adequately serve Fayette’s population and were within 15 minutes. I believe Fayette is the only metro county without an interstate highway, and if you are in the central part of the county, it can take almost an hour to get to any of these hospitals in rush hour, even by ambulance.
The hospital who fought the longest, Southern Regional in Clayton County, routinely had their ER over capacity and routinely diverted ambulances to hospitals even further away, but continued to fight as long as they could anyway.
The reason? Most of Fayette’s residents were considered “affluent”, or at least, had insurance. The Emory/Gwinnett is different, yet the same.
It’s all about the money…
WORD
Wasn’t it Emory that was accused of having an “unfair” contract with Grady last year?
Why have good public policy when you can satisfy rent seekers instead?
NONE of the hospitals, which are subject to the federal statutory mandate to treat, want to see the CON program eliminated. They do not want the competition from clinics and whatever other facilities the marketplace would create. In their view, if they have to provide services for which they know the consumer cannot pay, they need to be able to offset that with services to “paying” customers (insurance, medicare, medicaid, whatever) at highly inflated prices. There is some gravity to that argument, because if they get stuck with all the non-paying clientele and clinics, etc. get a large portion of the paying work through competition, the hospitals are going to have a hard time making it.
The safer approach is reform the federal “must treat” mandate to provide a relief valve for emergency rooms so that they do not have to treat everyone that comes through the door, only those with an emergency condition for which the ER was conceived. That would bar a lot of free riders and change the mentality of the self-insured that they can do without insurance and just go to the ER if they need medical attention. Obviously, a problem will arise in how to define an “emergency” for which a hospital must provide treatment, and a problem in execution, because hospitals would have a strong incentive to determine that a particular case was not an “emergency.”
Abuse of the ER is a major consideration to straightening out the healthcare system. It is the most expensive point of service provision, and is not the place for treating the flu and many other things it ends up treating.
You gotta wonder why more hospitals don’t set up nurse-run triage and auxiliary clinics to route non-emergencies away from the ER as quickly as possible.
They are probably afraid of the liability they may be exposed to if someone makes a mistake and releases a “non emergency” patient.
I didn’t say “release”, I’m thinking more like setting up a clinic within the hospital that handles non-emergencies. Some hospitals do it, others don’t and you end up next to a gunshot victim bleeding all over the place. Can’t imagine why all of them don’t.
BTW, saw something that studies had shown only 2% of overall medical costs come from “defensive medicine” and lawsuits. That’s still a lot of money, but relatively speaking, it’s not much that’ll get gained from “tort reform”.
We are talking about the ER here and not the average doctor. The average doctor pays 3.5% of their revenue on malpractice alone. An ER doctor spends a great deal more.
I am not in favor of tort reform as proposed by most people. I think capping awards is ridiculous, but I also think frivolous claims should be severely punished; including disbarment of the attorneys and their firms that push such claims repeatedly.
Perhaps if we had a greater tolerance of “mistakes” caused more by the bad luck on the part of the patient as opposed to incompetence or lack of diligence on the part of the doctor, there would be no need of tort reform at all.
Doctors aren’t the only cost involved in delivering medical care. So the 2% mark is probably still right.
As for the rest, I agree. I think the idea of medical panels, which are used in some places to determine if a case is frivolous or not, is one place to start, although if they get run down here anything like the Public Service Commission, we’re goin’ to heck in a handbasket.
Speaking of the costs. I would love to see an audit of where the money goes in the medical system before any reforms happen.
Why did a specialist (a dermatologist) charge me $350 for 5 minutes of his time. (Well I did wait 2.5 hours for him to see me, but I don’t think that counts).
Why did an X-Ray cost $950? X-ray technology is about 5 decades old now, does it really cost that much?
Why did my lung function test cost over $1,000? You just blow into a tube and it measures the coversion of O2 to CO2.
Where does this money go?
It sounds like you’re using the dermo I fired last year for just that reason. You make an appointment with me for 8:30 a.m., don’t make me wait in a room without clothes for an hour why you try to catch up to your schedule.
As for your costs… I have no idea, since that’s a lot higher than the costs I’ve seen charged for those things.
The insurance company price was lower in all cases. That was the sucker is paying cash price.
Was your Dermo a man with the first name Leslie?
No, it was Jay. I was wondering about that as well
Liberal Emory is proving once again it is all about money not serving the people.
Having been at Emory everyday this week because my dad had a heart attack and chose to drive from Dacula to Decatur, I believe Emory has great service but it is a pain to get in and out of. My dad was closer to Gwinnett and Emory Eastside Medical but he want to be at their main location because he knew he’d get the best doctors and care there.
Having said that, Emory needs to win over patients through their service not through stopping competition because many can not make that drive and minutes save lives.
Not fair you not telling us how he’s doing!
He went in Sunday. They wanted to do the angioplasty on Monday but once they started they realized his kidneys could not handle the dye so they had to hold off. By Wednesday all the dye used on Monday was out of his Kidneys and they were functioning better so they did the procedure; the doctors reopened the blockage and put 2 stints in. Since then his kidneys have gotten worse so he had to stay and now he is just worried. He does not want to be alone so we are up there everyday. I hope his kidneys look better today so he can go home. I know he will do better and actually get some sleep at home.
My dad is a big man who still rides a Harley at the age of 69. It is hard to see him like this.
Thanks for asking.
Godspeed to him, Kellie. Serious medical encounters are tough going, hang in there.
Treasure the moment. I went thru a bunch of scares with my Dad over 20 years. Just treasure the moment like it’s the last one you get, because you really never know when that moment is supposed to come.
Thanks. I am treasuring each day. I go there everyday even though it’s an hour away and my house is falling apart. Spending time with him is much more important.
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