This is going on over in Britain NOW under their universal health care system.
"Patient stacking" is when promises were made to the people that emergency room waits will be no longer than 4 hours, then they find out the four-hour time limit isn't even close to reality. To offset this patient quota, emergency cases are being "stacked" in the back of ambulances for as long as five hours, waiting for their four-hour waiting room time. This means a total of NINE hours (minimum) an emergency ambulance case has to wait for care!
In this country, ambulance cases are served first, and waiting room patients are sorted out due to level of care needed. Minor cases go last (of course). It's called triage.
Over in Britain, while ambulances are stacked up in the hospital ambulance bays with emergency cases (waiting for care), there are car accidents, industrial accidents, and domestic accidents happening that aren't being picked up--this means people are dying on roadways, at work, or in homes because the ambulances are all tied up at the hospitals! People are also dying in the backs of ambulances waiting for their turn in the actual waiting room.
Britain's medical establishment is also electing not to treat obese people for ANY illness simply because they're obese.
For those of you voting Democrat, do you still want universal health care in this country? Patient stacking is where this plan will lead here in America. This is what happens when you give it all over to government--Uncle Sam gets to decide who lives or dies, just like the British Health Authority.
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Patient stacking is a problem but unless the hospital wants to loose funding they have to meet the 4 hour window. In Canada it happens because of a lack of staff and beds. I would ask whether when an ambulance arrives at a county vs private hospital in the US if the wait time is the same? Does the system put the sickest to the front of the line all of the time or is there a bias based on coverage? Wait Times Blog
As far as I know, anything that arrives in an ambulance (coverage or not)gets top priority, because it's usually life-threatening stuff. Unfortunately, people know this, and have taken to calling ambulances for non-life-threatening stuff just to receive swift care.
As far as the walking wounded go, emergency room wait times are triaged by severity of illness or injury--even if you AREN'T covered, they have to treat you by law.
This happens even in military hospitals, where you'd think the number of people being served would be less, but no--the one here in Portsmouth opens its emergency doors to all after 5 p.m., and legitimate military cases get triaged along with everyone else.
My M-I-L had end-stage pancreatic cancer, and went into her military hospital (she was a retiree dependent) because she had breakthrough pain, despite being doped to the gills with morphine. Fourteen hours later, they got to her, when all they had to do was slap a Fentanyl patch on her at any time.
They slapped a Fentanyl patch on her, then sent her home with a box of them.
The reason why ambulance patient-stacking doesn't happen NOW is because most of our ambulance companies (whether you know it or not)are volunteer--they aren't paid by the city or anyone else. Usually volunteer ambulance drivers, EMTs, and firemen are staffed by off-duty military doctors and firemen, and they use the hours volunteering toward civilian training or experience when they get out of the service--it goes on their resume' for volunteer work. If patients were to stack up here, the shift changes would happen in the hospital parking lot instead of the ambulance company.
Some cities here have as little as one or two ambulances--stack THOSE and you'd be seriously hurting!
Want good ambulance and fire service? Live near a military base, where there's plenty of qualified EMTs, doctor-types, and firefighters.
Question to Ian: if someone were to walk in with an injury and could pay cash for treatment, would this count as "not having coverage"? Do you think this person would go to the head of the line if the triage nurse knew they were paying cash? Not unless they were some sort of dignitary or official.
Sometimes I pay cash for regular doctor visits just because I know my doctor will try to ding my insurance company with multiple billings for one blood test. A $7.50 allowance doesn't add up to the $50 in cash they get, so they try to code that one blood test nine ways from Sunday to get that same $50--it's nonsense, but that's the length hospitals and doctors go to get adequate payment for services. The VA is also guilty of this too--they tried to bill my husband's blood test using each and every thing that a CBC tests for, and that's many things. VA services are supposed to be free to deserving vets, but not any more--now they means-test.
Did you see the Bunk study stating 2/3 of doctors in America want National Health Care. The doctors who did this study also conducted one in 2002 and found that the majority of doctors did not want national health care, the problem with this is that the 2 question surveys drastically differ in there 2nd question. I found this article, 60% of Physicians Surveyed Oppose Switching to a National Health Care Plan, It's worth a read.
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