(And I very much appreciated his citing my earlier PJM piece, "Free Market Lessons from Contraception Fight".)
Dr. Meg Edison of Docs4PatientCare has created a nice short video, "Awakening of the American Doctor":
Dr. Doug Perednia discusses, "Denying payment for unnecessary emergency room visits". In particular, he highlights the perverse thinking behind the new guidelines in Washington state:
So here's the actual logic underlying this new Washington Medicaid initiative:
* ER docs and hospitals are required by federal law to see and evaluate anyone who walks in – at their own expense if necessary.
* If a Washington State Medicaid patient walks into the ER with a non-emergency and the doctors and hospitals see them as required by law, Medicaid will refuse to pay on premise that the provider are "abusing the system" and being lousy "stewards of care and safety and the public resources"
* Since the doctors and hospitals are abusing the system by simply being there and doing what the federal government has said they must, they should not even be allowed to try to bill the patient directly for the visit.
