Emergency Room or Urgent Care???

Hospital or Urgent Care? A lot of people do not know how to answer this question and making the wrong decision could effect the outcome of the patient or become very expensive. You may want to pay scripps a visit they will tell you exactly when an injury or ailment needs emergency care and when urgent care will suffice. 

"Between 2011 and 2012, prices for 77 out of the 98 most common ailments for which patients were admitted to the hospital increased. Treatment for a simple case of pneumonia rose by about 25 percent from $39,217 to $49,284. The average hospital charged $38,384 in 2012." With hospitals nation wide increasing the cost for the most common visits, it is with out a doubt the right time for people to think about using urgent and primary care facilities rather than racing to the hospital for common ailments. Doing this will keep the hospitals available for more serious problems and saves a significant amount of money for the patient. Many hospitals are even referring patients with non-serious needs to use urgent and primary care facilities. "In an effort to reduce overall health care costs, hospitals have been encouraged to admit fewer patients with common ailments, in favor of less expensive outpatient care." 

So let's ask ourselves, why this big increase? Well, research has been shown that mergers are part of the problem. For those of you who don’t know, a merger is when two separate businesses come together to for a single one. Ever since the 90’s mergers have been steadily increasing, however after the ACA was introduced, the amount of mergers increased dramatically. Experts in the health care industry say that this law is “transforming the economics of health care and pushing a growing number of hospitals into mergers”. This leads to higher expenses on the hospitals administrative end and in return increased expenses for patients. Another reason for this surge in price could be related to the investment many hospitals are making in information technology. It is unclear at this point if eventually these investment will pay off and in the end lead to lower costs for patients. 

Evera. Everyone should feel this good about healthcare.


Sources:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101726922
http://www.scripps.org/news_items/4231-should-you-go-to-the-emergency-room-or-urgent-care