I wanted to add a post here about EMTALA or Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act. The definition can be found on the CMS web site:
"In 1986, Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) to ensure public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. Section 1867 of the Social Security Act imposes specific obligations on Medicare-participating hospitals that offer emergency services to provide a medical screening examination (MSE) when a request is made for examination or treatment for an emergency medical condition (EMC), including active labor, regardless of an individual's ability to pay. Hospitals are then required to provide stabilizing treatment for patients with EMCs. If a hospital is unable to stabilize a patient within its capability, or if the patient requests, an appropriate transfer should be implemented."
There are numerous links on the web site about what that all means. From a practical standpoint in many states the law has been disruptive to psychiatric care for persons going to an emergency department with a psychiatric emergency. The law in effect makes it seem like there are plenty of resources to treat anyone with a serious problem, but on the other had the receiving services are seriously rationed. There is no better example than psychiatric services where most hospitals have no inpatient services and practically no hospitals have psychiatrists working in their emergency departments (ED). That results in a triage system based on dangerousness and the two pronged deficiencies of no treatment unless you are dangerous and a frequently contentious determination of dangerousness. Dangerousness here is basically a managed care term to facilitate discharges in patients who have been partially treated and still symptomatic. A person can be determined to be ready for discharge if they are no longer saying that they are having suicidal or aggressive thoughts that day. That means at the time of admission there can be a lot of dishonesty by others to get people in the hospital and in many cases a desperate person who is not able to function will say they are "suicidal" when they are not. The main problem is people who are uncertain for one reason or another and end up on legal holds for psychiatric assessment. In the state of Minnesota that hold is for 72 hours excluding weekends and holidays.
The EMTALA law generally creates a massive backlog of patient in the ED waiting to be admitted for psychiatric indications. If they cannot be admitted to the hospital they initially present to, they can be transferred to any hospital in the state. Transfers of several hundred miles are common. The receiving hospital is at a disadvantage because they have no records and any transferred electronic health records (EHR) are typically devoid of useful information. They also no longer have access to psychiatrists who know them and their family has to travel much greater distances to see them. The combination of rationed inpatient services, rationed housing and residential services, and EMTALA basically keeps a large population or partially stabilized people with psychiatric disorders rotating in an out of the ED, inpatient units, shelters, and in many cases local jails. EMTALA makes it seem like politicians are doing something while they are allowing insurance companies to ration services and make money.
In health care policy discussions, there has been an excessive focus on ED services. I have heard many people say that we don't need wider access to health care because of EMTALA: "Whether I have any insurance or not - I can always go to the ED and get treated." That is a rather naive statement about the evaluation and treatment of most medical problems.
What about the situation where patients have reached American healthcare nirvana and are insured? In this case rather than getting default rationed treatment because of an inadequate system they have the opportunity to receive proactively rationed care for the sake of maintaining their insurance company's profits. To make matters worse quality of care in both scenarios is very poor. Since these scenarios are only obvious to psychiatrists working in either acute care or residential care settings - I will provide a few examples of how being insured works against the patient. The outcomes are factual, the case specifics are not.
Case 1: 36 year old man admitted with alcohol use disorder and a recent suicide attempt. He requires detoxification and during that process it is discovered that he is also taking alprazolam 2 mg bars - 4 -5 a day that he acquires off the street. The detoxification is difficult for many reasons with poor response to benzodiazepines and on day 5 the decision is made to change the detox agent to phenobarbital. The patient remains depressed, hopeless, and is non-disclosing about suicide potential despite continuing on high doses of two antidepressants, one of which (venlafaxine ER 150 mg/day) was effective prior to escalating alcohol and benzodiazepine use. A managed care company reviewer calls on day 3 and 4 and says the patient must be discharged by day 5. When provided with the new data about the change in detox protocol - he says the patient can take the medication with him and complete it as an outpatient.
Case 2: 75 year old man with diabetes mellitus Type II, hypertension, and atrial fibrillation. He has an alcohol use problem but was admitted because of cognitive concerns and declining cognitive function. The family doubts that he is taking any of his ten medications accurately due to the cognitive problems. They are also concerned about the number of empty vodka bottles found at his home and the fact that he has numerous firearms. The managed care company reviewer calls the day after admission and states that the patient is not covered because there is no "dangerousness" - translation - he is not making any suicidal remarks or threatening to harm other people. He must leave the hospital or pay for his own treatment.
Case 3: 22 year old man with depression and heroin addiction. He was dropped off outside the ED following an accidental overdose. The ED staff are familiar with the patient because this is the fifth overdose he has had in the last 3 months all from excessive use of intravenous heroin. During the interview he says: "Look I am not trying to kill myself, I just get to the point when I am trying to get high that I don't care if I live or die." The plan is to detox the patient and get him on buprenorphine-naloxone in a controlled setting to reduce the risk of another overdose and provide the additional counseling necessary to do that. The managed care reviewer calls on day 2 and says the patient must be discharged and the buprenorphine-naloxone can be started on an outpatient basis.
These are a few of the many examples of people with insurance who are denied emergency psychiatric care based on the subjective impression of a managed care reviewer. The reviewer has clear conflict of interest since they are charged with saving the company money. In all of the examples there is a clear need for the patient to be in a protected environment until effective and maintenance treatment can be established. There is a clear need for the patient to be detoxed on an inpatient unit. Why would anyone think that giving a large supply of addictive medications to a person with an addiction to managed their own detox would be a good idea? In all cases the managed care reviewer does not care. There used to be an appeal process, but it was to another reviewer hired by the same company. There is no appeal to anyone who is neutral and there has not been for 20 years. The system has worsened in the past ten years. Now the hospitals being reviewed by these managed care companies have their own internal case managers who pressure physicians to make the same low quality decisions.
The result is clear. Very poor quality of care. Burned out physicians scrambling to pull together very shaky discharge plans for unstable patients. Politicians and regulators making it seem like they are doing something and bragging how they are improving access and quality of care while containing costs.
That is the real product of the EMTALA paradox.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
