by Mohammed Alo
28. February 2011 10:19
Every few years you have a very strange patient interaction that leaves you shocked and sort of delineates why we have a health care crisis in our country. This was from many years ago, but is very pertinent.
"Hello sir, my name is Dr. Alo. What brings you into the hospital today?"
"I couldn't sleep."
"What do you mean, sir?"
"I just couldn't fall asleep."
"That's why you came to the hospital?"
"Yes."
"You couldn't fall asleep, so you decided to come to the hospital?"
"Yes."
"Who is your normal doctor?"
"Dr. XYZ."
"Why didn't you see him or ask him about this issue?"
"I don't know. I figured I would just come in."
So the patient is obviously treating the Emergency room and the Hospital as his primary care facility which is absurd. I am not sure when this happened in our history, but people feel entitled to expensive and futile health care. Who on earth thinks that showing up to the Emergency room and getting admitted for "can't sleep" is a normal thing? Why do people think that this is perfectly normal behavior? How much does a hospital visit cost? And emergency room visit, plus all teh care, useless tests, the admission and all the care upstairs? We are talking about at least $15,000 if he got sent home that next morning, if not more. If he stays for some odd reason and gets further unecessary testing, an even bigger bill. When he could have seen his doctor in clinic and taken care of the issue there.
We obviously have a very bad situation on our hands and health care dollars are certainly being wasted when people think they can come in to the ER and be admitted for something like insomnia. That is insane!
The system needs to be fixed. We are in a very dark place.
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