9 Patients visited an Austin Tx ER 2,678 times over a 6 year period; cost 6 million $
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9 Patients visited an Austin Tx ER 2,678 times over a 6 year period; cost 6 million $
Until crap like this ends we will continue to pay astronomical rates for health care and insurance premiums. Those of us who use the health care system as it is meant to be used have to pay for DEAD BEATS like these people.
In the past six years, eight people from Austin and one from Luling racked up 2,678 emergency room visits in Central Texas, costing hospitals, taxpayers and others $3 million, according to a report from a nonprofit made up of hospitals and other providers that care for the uninsured and low-income Central Texans.
One of the nine spent more than a third of last year in the ER: 145 days. That same patient totaled 554 ER visits from 2003 through 2008.
In a report last year, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services said that 10 patients made up more than 1 percent of the system's 130,000 contacts with patients in two years. The patients' most common ailments were stomach or chest pains, injuries or respiratory problems.
http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...01/0401er.html
In the past six years, eight people from Austin and one from Luling racked up 2,678 emergency room visits in Central Texas, costing hospitals, taxpayers and others $3 million, according to a report from a nonprofit made up of hospitals and other providers that care for the uninsured and low-income Central Texans.
One of the nine spent more than a third of last year in the ER: 145 days. That same patient totaled 554 ER visits from 2003 through 2008.
In a report last year, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services said that 10 patients made up more than 1 percent of the system's 130,000 contacts with patients in two years. The patients' most common ailments were stomach or chest pains, injuries or respiratory problems.
http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...01/0401er.html
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Joined: Aug 2006
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From: Summerville, SC
yea, when i was younger i went to the ER for a huge gash in my head that required something like 40 stitches, couldve been a concussion (luckily wasnt), or a fractured skull (good thing that didnt happen).
i still had to wait my turn for that guy who just has a slight cough and that lady who thinks she has lupus because she just got done watching house.
i still had to wait my turn for that guy who just has a slight cough and that lady who thinks she has lupus because she just got done watching house.
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,472
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From: Des Moines, IA
WebMD should be shut down for this EXACT reason. People are not Doctors, watching a special on TLC about some exotic ailment, or doing a Google search on your stomach ache does not give you the knowledge to diagnose yourself with something crazy.
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Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 411
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From: Lansdale, PA
The report that mentioned the nine high-frequency patients didn't include reasons for all of those ER visits and didn't identify the patients because of privacy laws. But Kitchen, a former state legislator from Austin, gave a sketch: All nine speak English; three are homeless; five are women whose average age is 40, and four are men whose average age is 50. Seven have a mental health diagnosis and eight have a drug abuse diagnosis. Kitchen said she did not know their citizenship status.