Study: Uninsured don't go to the ER more than insured

[RamboLiberal]

Source: USA Today

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The aim of "Emergency Department Visitors and Visits: Who Used the Emergency Room in 2007?" was to determine the types of visitors who use hospital ERs.

The results may surprise some who believe that ERs mainly serve uninsured people, says second author Amy Bernstein, chief of the Analytic Studies Branch in the Office of Analysis and Epidemiology for the CDC and the National Center for Health Statistics.

"We were trying to show characteristics of people who use the ER. There are some perceptions. ... A lot of people think it's predominantly used by uninsured people because they don't have a normal source of primary care, but this particular brief shows this is not the case," Bernstein says.

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•ER visits by the uninsured were no more likely to be triaged as non-urgent than visits by privately insured patients or those with Medicaid coverage.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-05-20-emergency20_st_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip