Emergency departments may be one of the more effective places to pick up the stragglers from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's insurance enrollment process, according to a report from Kaiser Health News.
A visit to the emergency department for an uninsured patient can be very expensive. With the advent of potentially more affordable insurance coverage, some hospitals are taking advantage of ED wait times by providing patients with insurance application forms or information about signing up for health insurance.
Recent Medicaid expansions in the District of Columbia and 26 states may also be incentivizing hospitals in those locations to facilitate the insurance sign-up process for patients eligible for Medicaid. When previously uninsured patients sign up and are accepted to the program, hospitals can be paid retroactively for treatments administered to those patients as far as three months back.
While this doesn't necessarily mean more money for hospitals, it does mean potential improvements in other metrics of care, such as ED visits. Jim Dover, president and CEO of San Jose, Calif.-based O'Connor Hospital — one hospital investigating insurance information in the ED — explained the principle to KHN: "Let me use this metaphor: A person is coming down the river, and they're drowning, and you jump in and pull them out. And they come down again, and you pull them out…at some point, you have to go up the river and take care of the spot where they're all falling in."
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