Assignment Content
Select a health care facility or service (e.g., hospital, physician practice, long-term care facility, ambulance service, pharmacy, or skilled nursing facility).
Identify and read one recently proposed or enacted state or federal legislation that has an impact on your selected health care facility or service.
Use the following structure when putting together your policy brief:
Title
Executive summary (175 to 260 words)
Recommendations
Introduction
State recommendation again
Body
Overview of problem
Review of relevant research
Application of research results
Policy implications
Conclusion
ANSWER:
Emergency Departments in the United States are one of the primary entry points to a hospital. Patients seeking care first land at the emergency department before they are referred to other departments in the hospital. According to the national hospital care survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the country had 136.3 million emergency department visits in 2011, and the visits average between 130 and 150 million annually (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). The CDC also reported that 16% of the patients visiting emergency departments lack health insurance, while 9% might not have the capability to pay (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires that emergency departments accepting Medicare to provide medical screening examination (MSE) to any patients seeking service regardless of the medical condition, legal status, citizenship, and their capability to pay for the service (Sawyer, 2017). After receiving the medical examination, patients should be stabilized before they are referred to another facility.
Legislators, the government, and stakeholders in health should consider revising EMTALA to address the needs of all players. The law (EMTALA) should require the patients served in emergency departments and cannot afford paying the healthcare costs incurred to commit to paying at least a fraction of it, based on their financial capability. A policy offering guidelines on government reimbursement to emergency departments to continue reading …