Don't die waiting in the ER

From CNN.com: "Emergency room wait times a national problem

According to a 2009 report from the Government Accountability Office, emergency department wait times continue to increase. The report says the average wait time to see a physician is more than double the recommended time in some cases.

Research from Press Ganey Associates, a group that works with health care organizations to improve clinical outcomes, finds that in 2009, patients admitted to hospitals waited on average six hours in emergency rooms. Nearly 400,000 patients waited 24 hours or more."

These types of stories - where a 2 year old winds up losing her limbs because the ER staff was too busy to take care of her - would diminish, not grow, if it was affordable for the average citizen to have a primary care physician they were able to build a relationship with.

Uninsured putting stress on emergency rooms

According to a report out this week, the average total waiting time in a U.S. emergency room in 2008 was four hours and three minutes, a 27-minute increase in nationwide average wait times since 2002.

The recession is one chief reason for the increase, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians. In a survey in January of more than 1,700 emergency doctors, 66 percent said they'd seen an increase in the number of patients in their emergency rooms over the preceding six months. Most of the physicians -- 83 percent -- reported seeing patients who'd lost their jobs and health insurance and delayed medical care.

"Some of these people come to the ER because they've been turned away by their primary care physician, because they've lost their insurance," said Dr. Angela Gardner, incoming president of the physicians group. "Sometimes they've delayed care because they have no insurance and end up with a much more serious condition."

Gardner, who works in the ER at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas, said these newly uninsured people are taxing an overburdened system.

Read More at CNN.com

Too broke for the ER, patients flee

"Even as rising unemployment strips people of health insurance, sending many to emergency departments for care, doctors on the front lines say the lingering recession is also prompting an unexpected outcome.

More patients, they say, are refusing potentially costly procedures ranging from tests to confirm heart attacks to overnight stays to monitor dangerous infections."

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