ER wait time: you will never be seen

OK, whose scathingly brilliant idea was it to put ER wait times on  hospital web sites?  There are apparently enough morons out there that go there and check them.

MESSAGE TO THE PUBLIC:

If you have time, if you are thinking about this before you even come, YOU ARE NOT HAVING AN EMEGENCY. REPEAT YOU ARE NOT HAVING AN EMERGENCY.

So I am sitting at the triage desk with the usual snarl on my face (sort of a get the the hell away from here presentation) and a person comes up to discuss on the wait time that was on the web site. The conversation went a little something like this:

MORON: The web site said the wait was 15 minutes and we have been waiting 30 minutes.

ME: Those wait times are usually not acurate.  ER situations can change minute to minute.

MORON: But, your hospital operator told me the wait was fifteen minutes...

ME: They shouldn't have told you that. Things change quickly.

MORON: Well who can I talk to about this. This is public information and it is not correct.  BLAHBLAH BLAH.  LALALA.

Now mind you it is Monday.  There are 58 people in the waiting room who have been waiting for hours. There is a line of people behind this guy. I gave them the ER managers home phone number and encouraged them to call  and have a long talk about the fraud being committed by the hospital in regard to ER wait times.  I told them the manager won't be home until midnight and doesn't mind being called that late.

GOK and SWAG

The bain of our existence: charting.  More and more required charting, to the point where it will drive us all insane.  In the interest of collegeiality here are some abbreviations that might help you:     AQR - Ain't Quite Right Call Button Jockey - patient that uses call button, every few minutes  for no good reason SALT Same as last time CTS - Crazier than shit DQ - Drama Queen ETOH - Extremely Trashed or Hammered FMPS - Fluff My Pillow Syndrome (attention/sympathy seeker), like Call Button Jockey FOS - Full Of Shit GOK God only knows Gomergram - Ordering all available tests because the person is unable to explain what is wrong with them JPS - Just Plain Stupid PRATFO - Patient Reassured And Told to Fuck Off LGFD - looks good from door (but not closely examined, possibly an obnoxious patient) OBS - Obvious bullshit Urban Outdoorsman - Homeless person MFC measure for coffin SWAG scientific wild ass guess   Additions anyone?

I been robbed, I say, I been robbed

Here are the top ten things stolen from our emergency room:

1) syringes - before drawers were locked

2) linen - sheets, towels and wash cloths

3) phones off the wall

4) fetal doppler

5) lap top

6) bandaids, bandages

7) box lunches

8) gowns

9) oximeter

10) staff purse


Extra added bonus points:

thermometers

ornaments off Christmas tree in lobby

send in the clowns

***PUBIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT***

Attention all citizens:

The following are not emergencies:

1) bug bites - unless it have swollen to the size of a baseball

2) the fact that you cannot control your teenage daughter or son

3) you are fatigued or can't sleep

4) you want your son, daughter, brother, sister, etc. to get chemical dependency treatment

5) the condom broke

6) you are hungover

7) G tube not working

8) the cut is less than 1"

9) any kind of medication refill

10) menstrual cramps

Thank you,

your neighborhood ER

fraud is fruad is fraud

If you come into the ER with a stubbed toe, you could go out with ten diagnosis' on your visit record.  If you are admitted there will probably be twenty.  Everything that has ever been wrong with you will be noted as part of your discharge or admission diagnosis. Depending on which doctor you get, it will be more or less.

Knowing this, when I saw an article in the New York Times a couple of days ago (September 24: "Medicare Warning to Hospitals on Medicare Abuse"),  I was fascinated.  It talks about how the government isn't going to tolerate hospitals that try to "game the system".  In a statement, government officials were quoted in the following:

 “There are also reports that some hospitals may be using electronic health records to facilitate ‘upcoding’ of the intensity of care or severity of patients’ condition as a means to profit with no commensurate improvement in the quality of care".

The article also states:  
 

"Much of the higher billing is taking place in hospital emergency rooms, where hospitals are classifying many more patients as sicker and needing more care". 

Oh my goodness, ya think?????!!!  ER nurses have been talking about this for YEARS.  The fact that people are being way overtreated. There are very few people who come into the ER who don't have an IV started, aren't given IV medications, lab tests, xrays, etc.  It has gotten to the point of ridiculousness.  If you have a virus or a tummy ache you get all of this shit.

Doing all of this allows doctors to up the level of care and CHARGE MORE MONEY, and therefore MAKE MORE MONEY.  It is nothing less than fraud.  Now doctors try to justify all of this by whining about "liability", "patient satisfaction",  etc.  Bullshit. This is called greed folks.

It is done for all patients, not only medicare patients - espescially patients with insurance. Your chance of getting an MRI or a CT ANGIO increase in direct proportion to what kind of insurance you have.

Lets hope the government truly cracks down on this shameful practice of medicine.