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MSM Show Notes Ep 002 The AHCA and EMS

There has been a lot of coverage and information coming out over the past couple of days regarding President Trump’s healthcare act, the American Health Car Act. This act claims to have the goals of making healthcare more affordable for more people in the United States. This claim seems to be dubious at best, but that is not the aim of this episode. In this episode, we will discuss how the proposed law, which passed the house of representatives on May 4th, 2017 may change how EMS and Emergency Services are reimbursed.

There is a claim that there should not be too much concern over the cost of emergency care, as it only accounts for 2%[1] of all health care costs, but some estimates put that number at closer to 10%[2]. However, the bigger issues with emergency medicine and EMS revolve around uncompensated care. That is, people that have no insurance or poor insurance that seek emergency care, which leads to the facility or agency involved in patient not receiving funds for the services provided. Presently, approximately 33 percent of all ED charges are funded by Medicaid[3].This is problematic, as the present bill proposed by the House of Representatives will results in a $900 billion cut in Medicaid funding[4].

The bill is opposed by the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, The American Nurses Association, the AARP, and other healthcare and eldercare organizations. Of course, we don’t know what the result of the bill will be, or what the final law will look like, but Emergency Physicians and EMS workers should consider what the fallout of this bill might be before supporting it.

 

Paper of the Week:

Oliver, Walter, Redmond Prehospital deaths from trauma: Are injuries survivable and do bystanders help? Injury May;48(5):985-991. doi: 10.1016/j.injury.2017.02.026. Epub 2017 Feb 27 Link

 

Med Box

Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure Tim Harford

2012

Check it out here

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/oct/28/nick-gillespie/does-emergency-care-account-just-2-percent-all-hea/

[2] http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(13)00313-2/abstract

[3] http://newsroom.acep.org/fact_sheets?item=29928

[4] The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC May 4th, 2017