>Emergency Rooms: Not for Everybody?
Some NJ hospitals are marketing their emergency rooms to insured patients, while the state struggles to reduce ER visits by Medicaid recipients
Common wisdom in the healthcare industry: emergency room visits represent the biggest cost to hospitals. Then why is Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton mounting a marketing campaign to pull patients into its ER? Its recently announced 15/30 pledge promises a medical evaluation within 15 minutes of arrival and an exam within 30.
Robert Wood Johnson is hardly alone. Hospitals across the state are expanding their emergency departments and striving to cut waiting times to compete for patients.
Meanwhile, the state is struggling to reduce ER use by Medicaid recipients.
Suzanne Ianni , CEO of the Hospital Alliance of New Jersey, whose members include “safety net” hospitals in cities with large charity care and Medicaid caseloads, helps reconcile these two trends. She said hospitals are advertising their low ER waiting times in order to attract patients with commercial health insurance, which pays better rates to the hospital than Medicaid.
