All Americans Deserve Access To Emergency Care
January 18, 2006, Two years ago, I experienced terror as a parent while driving with my wife and our daughter Peyton. What began as a normal Sunday afternoon turned into the worst experience of my life as Peyton suddenly went into convulsions. Horrified, Leslie and I rushed to the nearest hospital to seek treatment for our two-year-old daughter.
I thank God that Peyton is healthy now and that we were near an emergency department that day.
When you or a loved one has a healthcare emergency, you expect that you will be able to go to the emergency room. But what if the ER is no longer there? This notion is not that far-fetched. In fact, there are only 4,000 emergency departments left operating in this country. Even more disturbing is the fact that the number of ERs is decreasing while the number of people seeking care at ERs is rising.
The need for assistance has never been so great. The American College of Emergency Physicians recently released a report card grading each state’s emergency care system. Tennessee received a C-minus. Among other things, the report showed that the number of board-certified emergency physicians in our state is too low to meet the needs of residents. The Tennessee Hospital Association has reported that visits to emergency departments have increased by 35 percent in the past three years.
While Tennessee ranked in the bottom 25 percent nationwide in this report, our state certainly is not alone. Not a single state earned an A grade.
This issue touches each one of us, as well as our loved ones. We rely on the emergency departments to be there when we need them. ER providers and the specialists who support them play critical roles during emergencies. On weekends and after normal business hours, ERs are often the only places available to seek medical treatment. As we witnessed last summer after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, emergency care providers are often the first and only people on the scene during natural disasters.
ER physicians are the safety net providers in this country. They provide care when people have nowhere else to turn. But across our nation, emergency departments are closing because of rising costs and staffing problems.
In the last decade, 15 percent of ERs across the nation closed their doors. A majority of the emergency departments that remain open are underfunded and overcrowded. To make matters worse, many are understaffed due to the rising cost of medical liability insurance.
It is critical that assistance is given to emergency departments to make sure that they will be open and operating with enough staff to treat individuals who need urgent care. In Congress, I have introduced the Access to Emergency Medical Services Act to address this issue and ensure that Americans everywhere have access to emergency care. My bill:
• increases Medicare payments for ER services because ERs serve a disproportionate share of Medicaid recipients and uninsured patients,
• grants emergency physicians the same limited liability protection given to commissioned officers of the Public Health Services and employees of federally funded health clinics when they provide care to uninsured patients,
• encourages hospitals to end the practice of warehousing admitted patients in the halls of emergency departments by providing financial incentives for hospitals that promptly find beds for patients.
Emergency departments are too important to lose in our communities. In matters of life-or-death, an emergency department could make all the difference. Quick action is needed to make sure that if you or a loved one needs emergency care, a fully-staffed ER will be open nearby.
