Gone Are The Days...

Can I just clarify something, right here and right now???

Gone are the days that going to the Hospital by ambulance meant that you were not only going to be brought right into the ER, but that you were going to be seen immediately. Long, long gone. This is a myth that everyone has bought in to, and maybe it was that way awhile back, but it no longer is. As Hospitals get busier and busier, and as people start calling 911 because they have a runny nose and a congested cough for 2 days rather than calling their own Dr (yes, that was my last ambulance run), more and more patients are being given a taxi-ride to the Hospital that costs hundreds of dollars, to be brought right out front to the waiting room, and go through the same triage process as if they had been driven in by car. My favorite is the ones that go by ambulance, get brought to the waiting area, and while we are moving them from the stretcher to the wheelchair, their family, who drove to the Hospital in their own car, walks in to stand by their loved one. Basically, they could have saved a few hundred $$$ by putting him in the car, and driving him themselves. And not tying up an ambulance at the same time.

Now please, don't get me wrong...there are definitely patients that NEED to go by ambulance. There are patients that SHOULD go by ambulance. There are patients that go by ambulance as a precaution. But there is a large number of patients that take the ambulance to the Hospital for one reason and one reason only: Because the taxi cab company's are smart enough not to accept MassHealth and Medicare for payment.

Just my $.02!