The Pros And Cons Of EMTALA

In 2010, the aggregate shortfall of government funding for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries was estimated at $28 billion dollars. Currently, Medicare and Medicaid in combined do not cover the complete cost of care for program recipients but their beneficiaries account for about half the care provided by hospitals .

In the chart it shows the uncompensated care and payment shortfalls from Medicare and Medicaid in billions of dollars, 2010 Similarly, between 2000 and 2010, the cost of uncompensated care grew by 82 percent, from $21.6 to $39.3 billion. In the below chart it shows the cost-based uncompensated care in billions of dollars, 1990 – 2010 .EMTALA’s direct costs to hospital, EMTALA enacts direct costs to hospitals for violation of the statute besides the uncompensated care costs to EDs resulted from EMTALA being an unfunded mandate. From the year EMTALA enacted through 2011, hospital lost $573.5 billion from uncompensated medical care cost this resulted in closure of many EDs

Likewise, civil penalty for physicians who negligently violate the statute is $50,000 / violation .Extensive hospital changes are required to overcome emergency department overcrowding which means increasing in hospital resources this includes:

i. Fast track and observational unit is when the patient not sick enough to be admitted as inpatient most patients being observed in these units usually the patient stay from 17 to 24 hours, but no more than 48 hours. A Study done shows that observational unite save health care system approximately $5.5 billion to $8.5 billion annually. Another advantages for OB unit include better clinical outcomes, greater patient satisfaction, less diagnostic uncertainty and improvements in the use of hospital resources and staff. Also it reduced the ambulance diversion by 40% . ii. Increasing the personnel in