I’m still alive. 
I checked out only after my kidneys worked again. The docs also wanted to do heart surgery, but I refused.
Well, I guess everything resolved itself, if you’re still kicking here in August and all this went down in May. You should consider yourself lucky, rfgdxm.
For what it’s worth, if you refuse a procedure at a hospital around here, that is not the same as meaning you want to leave AMA. You the patient have a right to refuse any given treatment option in favor of something else. Of course, if you refuse all the choices, you might as well go home, but sometimes there are less invasive and expensive options that may help as well.
salutes all the doctors, nurses, staff, and other ER heroes
I remember–very, very vividly–my seventh or eighth birthday party in which my brother ran into the glass part of our old screen door without looking, and my mum and dad rushed him to the hospital while he was crying and bleeding everywhere, and he had to get stitches over his eye and on his arm.
Only time I’ve ever been was for a horrible earache in the middle of the night, though. I’m like my dad, we don’t ever get sick or injured–we have mutant superpowers, I’m telling you.
I guess I got incredibly lucky when I broke my arm. I went to the emergency room at like 11 pm on a Saturday night. Almost no one was in the emergency room. I was taken for an x-ray relatively quickly, had my arm put into a splint and was told to come back the next day. The next day, I went back and a cast was put on. (The doctor who put the cast on had not been eager to come in at midnight to put a cast on a non-dislocated radial fracture when he could just wait until the next morning when he had to come in anyway for an operation.)
My mom once took my dad to the emergency room. Well, actually, he was admitted by the emergency room because it was after hours, but the doctor knew he was coming. Apparently he was grey and sickly enough looking that the people in the emergency room were relieved to know that the cause was known (pancreatits) and he was taken quickly to his room. Pain medicine was less quick to show up. (There are disadvantages to having pain severe enough that morphine is indicated- only special people can hand it out- and somehow there was a miscommunication or something so it took longer than it was supposed to).
So why the “I’d never have imagined this could happen in the US” comment? Or did you mean it as “wow, what a great country this is?”
You have a very good attitude, purple haze enjoying the passing scene while waiting patiently. I did volunteer work in an ER on weekends for a couple of years, and it was usually the people with the least severe problems who complained the most.
Unfortunately, in recent years a lot of people are just too lazy or ignorant to go to a family doctor with minor complaints, so the ERs get over run with people with toothaches, mild cuts or abrasions and other insignificant conditions that should not be seen in an ER at all. After all, it is an Emergency Room (or, Department, as usually termed these day).
The doctors, nurses and techncians I observed over the years were really outstanding, dedicated and hard working people who never ceased to amaze me. Their coolness in dire emergencies was a sight to behold.
It was amusing that often the medical school sent students to observe for several hours. Quite a few, after a harrowing day, suddenly changed their career field.
I saw, more than once, an intern who had just lost his first patient, sit on the floor sobbing. These people are something else dealing with incredible stress day after day. It seems to me that having to wait a few hours for a minor complaint is a cheap price to pay for what you get.
This was a teaching hospital, and I guess the patient’s needs come first above billing
IMHO in all hospitals the patien’s need comes before billing issues!
Fist of all the Doc should have mentioned that there are things like Emergency Medicaid and that the hospital’s Social Worker will help you apply for these type of assistence! Hospital’s have learned to help you find a way to pay if you have no insurance, otherwise the eat the bill!
Had I dropped dead catching the bus outside the door probably the resident doc would have had his ass kicked
No, this is why they made you sign an AMA (Against Medical Advice) form before leaving. So the hospital and doctors are not liable! BTW if you do have insurance and sign out AMA, then your insurance does not cover the bill!
Since the lab reports indicated I had a heart attack, since by the book that means heart surgery is indicated, the doc ordered that I not leave the hospital
Lab tests alone do not tell the doctors that you need immediate surgery! They
just tell them you most likely had a heart attack! You had to be there for quite
some time. Those type of labs are usuallyl done in sets, like a set of three
tests done in either 3, 6, or 12 hour interval’s. If they wanted to do bypass
surgery they must have thought or seen that your arteries/veins going into
the heart were clogged. Did you have chest X-rays, Cat Scan with an agent injected in to your vein so they could see you veins and arteries better,
an Echo Cardiagram, or a Stress Test - (EKG while walking/jogging in palce)?
I second, what happened? You say not much follow up! But what, are you on
a blood thinner, do you have plans to follow up? If not we fear you’re on borrowed time. We worry.
I had a major surgery via Emergency Medicade. The hospital staff Nurses, Docs, Aids and everone were great!
PS … Sorry one mer thing!
rfgdxm - you say
My response was there is no way I could pay for that, and could they just prescribe something and I could go home? The doc didn’t care, and just wanted me to consent for heart surgery. I had to agressively refuse such. I ended up checking out against medical advice. I thought when I said “I can’t pay for that” they’d just toss me on the street. I guessed wrong. The costs of heart surgery must be astronomical. I’d never have imagined this could happen in the US.
What! Isn’t this a good thing. You say, I can’t pay for that, but the Doc and hospital
wants to treat you anyhow! Whouldn’t you have been more shocked if they asked
if you could pay for something before treating you … then refusing to treat you if you can’t pay!
Are you sure you weren’t just so shocked by (sounds this way to me) the ER Doc wanting you to have surgery right away! Sounds like he was rushing it a little! You were OK at the moment! IMO he sould have have suggested follow up with a Cardiologist indicating
that you would probably need surgery ASAP and strongly suggesting soon!
I am considering myself ridiculously lucky right now. I had a car accident back in May, and I wasn’t broken or bleeding but I had tingling in my arms so mom took me to the ER. We arrived at 4:45am and I was seen and x-ray’d and good to leave at 6:00am. I was amazed at how fast it went, but there were only 2 or 3 other people in the waiting room when we arrived. I think the desk clerk said that earlier in the night it had been very busy so I lucked out.
In Georgia they have a program called “indigent care”. In Arkansas I think they call it charity but I believe that all states have such a program. Not having money isn’t an reason to decline healthcare in dire situations. If you’d been at the hospital here in my hometown, they would have advised you to have the surgery and told you to fill out forms explaining why you couldn’t afford to pay the bill. They take information about your income, expenses and such and if they determine you are eligible, they pay (or write off) a portion of the bill, if not the entire bill.
Here is the way that Georgia’s program works: Indigent Care Trust Fund | Georgia Department of Community Health
If you didn’t apply for aid, the hospital would have billed you for the surgery if you’d gone through with it. I see no reason that you shouldn’t have had the surgery though, costs be damned, and applied for some sort of aid.
You say that like it’s a BAD thing. You were actually put out that they were trying to save your life rather than your wallet?
Once, while waiting for my mom to be treated for whatever injury she had inflicted upon herself, a guy came into the E.R. with a good portion of his foot missing. He had been chopping wood and ooops! His wife had wrapped a blanket around his foot and was carrying the rest of the foot in a cooler. He had to wait with everybody else.
I was in a car accident in Feb and, on reflection, I should have taken the ambulance. I didn’t, though. I drove myself to the urgent care attached to a hospital and got in line like everyone else. As I got in line, that’s when I realized that I had been in a BAD car accident and I started to hurt. Then I started to cry, but I tried to hold it back which left me with those gulpy sobs that little kids do when they work themselves up.
I sat at the desk and the nurse just looked at me. I hadn’t looked at myself, so I didn’t realize how torn up I was. I explained I was in a car accident, my neck hurt, my stomach REALLY hurt, and I thought I broke my arm (it was black-- 2nd degree burns). She asked if I had bruises, I said I didn’t know. She told me to go in the bathroom and look. I returned and told her that my entire torso was BLACK.
I didn’t wait at all, much to the dismay of the 40 or so people in the waiting room. All the other patients started complaining because I had just come in and was taken back. The urgent care doc looked at me and told me I had to go to the ER. I was IV’ed and wheeled to the ER where I spend the next 8 hours getting tests and CAT scans for internal bleeding.
The nurses and doctors were SO nice. The nurses (like 6 of them) came into my room about 3 in the morning: “Hey, Cindy was going to run to Del Taco to get us some lunch and the doctor ok’ed it. Would you like a burrito or something?” Very nice.
Boring as hell for those 8 hours. I couldn’t sleep because I had an IV in my arm, so if I moved, it would jab me. The staff was wonderful though!
I had a friend who also nearly died after waiting for hours in the ER.
She started bleeding heavily at a Horse Show Party, was treated by the on-site EMT, who shipped her to the hosiptal ER about midnight. She waited quietly in the ER all night long, regularly going to the restroom to replace her completely blood-soaked sanitary pads, and then quietly waiting some more.
Until about 6am, when her younger sister went in to see her, and found her still in the waiting room. Now this younger sister is not a quiet, polite type. Decidedly NOT! She raised a fuss, and they finally had someone look at her sister. She had an ectopic (sp?) which had burst (?) and they rushed her upstairs for emergency surgery. But they had to first pump some blood into her. She took 5 pints, which I think is nearly half the normal human blood volume. Half! They said she very nearly bled to death, right there in the ER waiting room. Probably would have, if her loud mouthed sister hadn’t arrived.
Seems like this is a regular problem – ER’s treat the noisy, obnoxious patients first, and let the patient ones just quietly die in the waiting room.
So obviously, the safest thing for a patient to do is make a big, loud fuss in the ER, so they will treat you. Or have a relative do this for you. I know that since this, whenever I have gone to the ER with a friend or relative, I’ve been pushy & noisy in the waiting room. Sometimes embarrassing for me, but it gets them treated.
And the ER people complain about the loud, noisy, obnoxious patients filling their waiting rooms. But it is their own procedures that lead to this. If they would do a better job of triage, so that patients get seen & evauated, they wouldn’t have patients dying quiety in their waiting rooms. And they would probably have fewer loud, pushy people in those waiting rooms.
Honestly, I don’t know what to think of this. I had assumed if things were the bad they’d wheel me out the door to die. Instead, they wanted to do heart surgery. Without first doing a wallet biopsy. Perhaps the US is a great country.
Not a bad thing, but just a shocking thing. “You want to do HEART SURGERY on me?” The ER docs just bypassed the wallet biopsy part and wanted to do a literal bypass surgery on me. They were so silly they wanted to save my life. Amazing.
Having spent time in an ER, I can’t imagine why somebody in need of medical care would have to wait in a room for hours. It doesn’t seem… efficient? Fair?
Why would they do this? If you were bleeding profusely, would they take you in faster than, say… someone who had fainted?
Apparently in Michigan, the law must be to do emergency surgery first, and ask questions later. It was me who brought up payment issues. If I hadn’t, the first I’d have heard about billing would have been after heart surgery.
Just have a heart attack and go to the ER. Get that diagnosis, and they’ll make your head spin about treatment. Wait? Hell no. They wanted to cut my chest up immediately.
My husband had an old ulcer start bleeding a couple years ago, and fortunately recognized the symptoms early enough that at least he didn’t pass out from the blood loss before telling me about it and us going to the ER – I was ready to call for an ambulance, but he wanted to go to the hospital our own doctor practices in, which wasn’t the closest one. As it turned out, as soon as he told them what was going on, they took him right back and pumped a liter and a half of mostly blood out of his stomach; I was quite impressed with how promptly he was treated. Which is a good thing, because he too could have bled to death right then and there. (And at least I learned one other thing to have them check for if I ever find him unconscious!)
I also learned, after having to take my son in to get various cuts stitched up (and somehow he’d always manage to cut himself badly enough to need stitches on Friday afternoon just after the doctor’s office and urgent care clinics closed for the weekend), to do at-home first aid to stop the bleeding and make sure everyone had something to eat before we went to the ER. Same thing when I sprained my ankle badly – elevate it and ice it down, have some food, and then go to the ER. In those days we were going to the main UCLA ER, which sees more than its fair share of major trauma, and we seldom had a short wait. But we self-triaged ourselves into the “not exactly emergency but do need to be seen eventually” category, went armed with plenty of reading materials and lots of patience, and it worked out fine.