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80 people went to Dallas emergency rooms 5,139 times in a year

TwiceHorn

By TwiceHorn
in Daily Texan

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31591

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One of the elements of white or class or educated privilege that has become vivid to me over the years is encapsulated by this passage:

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Michael Johnson is 57. He’s from Dallas. He’s diabetic. He has a job in fast food. He rents a home. He gets by.

Until recently, no one ever explained to him how hospitals, doctors and emergency rooms work. 

“My momma always told me when something’s wrong with you, go see the doctor,” Johnson said. 

There are some people, probably a startling number, that even Obamacare and Medicaid aren't going to help.

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Lhorn

Lhorn 4971

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Not trying to be an ass, but I'm not seeing how that passage relates to white privilege or any privilege, except that Michael Johnson, 57 yo from Dallas, Tx might be dumber than Forrest Gump. It is surprising that he can rent a home working a fast food job.  Maybe he's a manager, but then how does he not know the first thing about how to access healthcare?  

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Huckleberry

Huckleberry 33115

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11 minutes ago, Lhorn said:

Not trying to be an ass, but I'm not seeing how that passage relates to white privilege or any privilege, except that Michael Johnson, 57 yo from Dallas, Tx might be dumber than Forrest Gump. It is surprising that he can rent a home working a fast food job.  Maybe he's a manager, but then how does he not know the first thing about how to access healthcare?  

He specifically said educated privilege, so you are indeed showing your ass.

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31591

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16 minutes ago, Lhorn said:

Not trying to be an ass, but I'm not seeing how that passage relates to white privilege or any privilege, except that Michael Johnson, 57 yo from Dallas, Tx might be dumber than Forrest Gump. It is surprising that he can rent a home working a fast food job.  Maybe he's a manager, but then how does he not know the first thing about how to access healthcare?  

Even if this is not a great example, there are things that most of us raised according to a certain standard of living take for granted that are very much acquired knowledge for vaster swaths of society than we might imagine.  A lot of it is not a privilege based on race at all, although members of certain races are more likely to have or lack the "privilege" than others.

Our parents have jobs with health insurance and 401ks.  A fair number of people have parents that don't and they don't know the difference (they're not hoping for that promotion or better job for the 401k or the health benefits, maybe the latter).  Therefore the parents don't automatically pass knowledge along of how to have/acquire and use health insurance or how to use a 401k or otherwise save money.  They may not even have checking accounts and certainly not savings accounts, so none of that gets passed down either.  They don't own a home, and  . . . . so on and so forth ad infinitum ad nauseam.

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Billy Pilgrim

Billy Pilgrim 1985

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Here’s part of the problem- there’s no accountability for people like Johnson. Going to the ER doesn’t cost him anything so why the hell not go?

 

I, on the other hand, have a co-pay and a deductible that could run into the thousands if I go to the ER before the insurance even kicks in. Therefore, I don’t go to the ER if I’ve got a cough, or I think I’ve got the flu, a stomach bug or cut myself on glass. These are all ailments that don’t require an ER visit but people visit the ER all day, everyday for them.

i don’t know what the answer is for people like Johnson but there needs to be some accountability for him. Mine is a financial penalty that I don’t want to incur. He needs something similar to curb his visits.

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SuingToGetAMessageBoard?

SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861

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I wonder if there really is some way to handle this.  If you go more than 25 times in a year then you need to get a doctor to verify that you have some condition likely to expose you to repeated ER visits or you get put on some do-not-respond list.  Is the occasional mess up related to that list worth the money saved and abuse reduced?

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Deej

Deej 76976

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We had two people in our office, who had perfectly good health insurance provided by our employer, who went to the ER for every little thing. Cold, allergies, scrapes and cuts...you name it. I guess it was just too difficult to pay the $30 co-pay for an office visit, or for White Glove to come by the house or office to give them some meds. 

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El Diablo

El Diablo 4232

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12 minutes ago, Deej said:

We had two people in our office, who had perfectly good health insurance provided by our employer, who went to the ER for every little thing. Cold, allergies, scrapes and cuts...you name it. I guess it was just too difficult to pay the $30 co-pay for an office visit, or for White Glove to come by the house or office to give them some meds. 

Girl in my office had to leave work early the other day because her husband had gone to the ER and "it must be serious, he's NEVER sick!". I hear her husband is in the ER and I'm thinking he's severed a limb or some shit. Nope.

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Lhorn

Lhorn 4971

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2 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

He specifically said educated privilege, so you are indeed showing your ass.

He also said white privilege and I also said “any privilege” to be inclusive of other forms of privilege. 

Quit being a cunt. 

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23483

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1 hour ago, Bigbend1812 said:

This happens at hospitals all over the country. This is a small snap shot. 

Similar data from Austin CommUnityCare a few years ago.  Can't find the article, but basically a small handful of people drive the ER utilization in Austin. Just stupid numbers. It works on a broader scale as well.  The vast majority of healthcare costs are drive by single digit percent of utilizers.  Over eighty-five percent of costs driven by two broad disease states. 

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Trey3216

Trey3216 15378

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10 minutes ago, thestud said:

 

Ha. Just went and queried the address of one of our moderately regular customers. Since October 1st she has called 9-1-1 One Hundred Sixty Seven times. 167. Last time was at 9:12 this morning.

 

That’s damn near 5/7 days every week.  Good God 

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immortal13

immortal13 4059

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11 minutes ago, thestud said:

 

Ha. Just went and queried the address of one of our moderately regular customers. Since October 1st she has called 9-1-1 One Hundred Sixty Seven times. 167. Last time was at 9:12 this morning.

 

Someone needs to break her fucking phone

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Skipper

Skipper 6210

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28 minutes ago, thestud said:

 

Ha. Just went and queried the address of one of our moderately regular customers. Since October 1st she has called 9-1-1 One Hundred Sixty Seven times. 167. Last time was at 9:12 this morning.

 

Fuck a safety net for people that abuse the system like this.  If you hit a reasonable cap and don't have insurance your ass doesn't get picked up.  If they end up actually sick and die, well, sucks for them, and good for the taxpayers.

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23483

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10 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

pardon my ignorance, but he gets charged something for going to the ER, correct?  And he just doesn't pay these bills?  Can't they garnish your wages for unpaid medical bills?

LOL @ "garnish wages". 

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babysdaddy

babysdaddy 2728

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That is unbelievable. One of the items about the ACA was to remove unpaid medical bills from impacting credit scores. So there is literally no incentive to pay ER bills. They legally cannot refuse to treat a patient and the patient does not have to ever pay.

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31591

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3 minutes ago, babysdaddy said:

That is unbelievable. One of the items about the ACA was to remove unpaid medical bills from impacting credit scores. So there is literally no incentive to pay ER bills. They legally cannot refuse to treat a patient and the patient does not have to ever pay.

The vast majority of the people doing this have no credit score and would never receive any type of credit.  I dont think the ACA had any effect on this whatsoever.

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9083

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12 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

The vast majority of the people doing this have no credit score and would never receive any type of credit.  I dont think the ACA had any effect on this whatsoever.

But it damn sure was supposed to. Unecesary ER visits would go away because people would have access to doctors thru their newly acquired health insurance.

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MaybeACoordinator

MaybeACoordinator 8349

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A buddy of mine is a fireman / EMT and has worked downtown Houston. In a typical shift, they spend most of their day peeling Kush casualties off the sidewalk and dropping them off at Ben Taub, where they detox for a few hours, and then walk right out the door looking for more Kush. (That fake weed shit that is more like bath salts if you don't know.)

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31591

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17 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

A buddy of mine is a fireman / EMT and has worked downtown Houston. In a typical shift, they spend most of their day peeling Kush casualties off the sidewalk and dropping them off at Ben Taub, where they detox for a few hours, and then walk right out the door looking for more Kush. (That fake weed shit that is more like bath salts if you don't know.)

I think you mean Kratom.  I havent messed with weed of any kind in 25 years, and I know Kush is legit.

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MaybeACoordinator

MaybeACoordinator 8349

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1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think you mean Kratom.  I havent messed with weed of any kind in 25 years, and I know Kush is legit.

No, that shows your age, and mine for that matter. Kush used to be a strain of weed. Now the name has jumped to describe what was fairly recently known as K-2 or "spice."

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TornACL

TornACL 7731

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14 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Three people visited DFW ER's 500 times in one year.  Eighty people 5,000 times.  You can extrapolate that ERs are not being used for emergencies by a significant number of people for a very significant number of visits.

That extrapolation doesn't really make any sense. 

Can't you also argue, with the numbers in front of us, that the vast majority of useless ER visits are being caused by an incredibly small number of outlier patients? 

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