Patients who are discharged from the emergency department with "primary care treatable" diagnoses may actually need emergency care, according to an American College of Emergency Physicians report on a study to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers applied the NYU Emergency Department Algorithm to ED data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify ED visits with "primary care treatable" diagnoses. They found 6.3 percent of all ED visits had this discharge diagnosis. However, these patients' major complaints were the same as the major complaints of ED patients without the "primary care treatable" discharge diagnosis. In addition, the latter group of patients often needed immediate emergency care or hospital admission, according to the report.
The data suggest that the "primary care treatable" discharge diagnosis does not accurately identify non-emergency ED visits. The authors said that insurance companies that deny payments for "non-emergency" visits may unfairly penalize patients with true emergencies, and may discourage patients with real emergencies from seeking care at an ED, according to the report.
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Researchers applied the NYU Emergency Department Algorithm to ED data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify ED visits with "primary care treatable" diagnoses. They found 6.3 percent of all ED visits had this discharge diagnosis. However, these patients' major complaints were the same as the major complaints of ED patients without the "primary care treatable" discharge diagnosis. In addition, the latter group of patients often needed immediate emergency care or hospital admission, according to the report.
The data suggest that the "primary care treatable" discharge diagnosis does not accurately identify non-emergency ED visits. The authors said that insurance companies that deny payments for "non-emergency" visits may unfairly penalize patients with true emergencies, and may discourage patients with real emergencies from seeking care at an ED, according to the report.
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