Jul

30

BLOG: Is keeping patients waiting in the ER a good business move?

By Patient Access Weekly Advisor

In this piece from the Wall Street Journal health blog, the author asks whether long emergency room waits are good for a hospital’s bottom line.

The author notes that patients who show up at the emergency room are less likely than patients admitted to the hospital by a staff physician to need lucrative, procedure-driven care.

Because a hospital has only so many inpatient beds, it may make economic sense to fill the beds up with the lucrative, well-insured patients admitted by staff physicians, he says.

To read the full blog in the Wall Street Journal, click here.