Congress takes on ER overcrowding

When my son was in college out of state, our HMO would not cover physician office visits, so for basic flu or cold they (the INSURANCE company) advised he go to the ER so they would cover his visit. I think the Insurance companies are also a large part of this problem.

I am a PA in an Inner-City ER and most of our patients receive state paid healthcare or have no insurance at all.

Some of these patients have Primary Care Doctors, but if the patient needs to be seen in less than a months time the PMD's office tells the patient to go to the ER.

I am employed at a non-profit rural hospital in western Washington state. Because we are the largest hospital within a 50 mile radius and we have a high population of uninsured, aging, addicts and mental health patients our ER rooms runneth over consistently. When we discuss EMR updates for the ER and talk about patient room numbers we have rooms 1-8 and then hall beds (gurneys) 1-4. I am unsure what is beyond that - assigning ambulances and police cars parked and waiting room numbers too?
This of course does not address those in the waiting room. As I said, the ER runneth over.

If emergency rooms were used only for true emergencies, I suspect there would be adequate capacity. The demand in terms of true emergent demand is not the problem, but how it is defined.
Couple unnecessary demand with non value added activities being performed by staff (forms and redundant activities that don't enhance patient care as demanded by regulatory agencies) and the results are long waits for those currently in beds, long waits for those waiting for beds, & some who never get beds because their ambulance gets sent away to another hospital.
The system is very broken although not beyond repair. The repair is not easy and requires significant change in how business is done. The healthcare industry, of which I am part, has to want to fix it and get beyond the learned helplessness.

If emergency rooms were used only for true emergencies, I suspect there would be adequate capacity. The demand in terms of true emergent demand is not the problem, but how it is defined.
Couple unnecessary demand with non value added activities being performed by staff (forms and redundant activities that don't enhance patient care as demanded by regulatory agencies) and the results are long waits for those currently in beds, long waits for those waiting for beds, & some who never get beds because their ambulance gets sent away to another hospital.
The system is very broken although not beyond repair. The repair is not easy and requires significant change in how business is done. The healthcare industry, of which I am part, has to want to fix it and get beyond the learned helplessness.