What Do Health Savings Accounts Mean for the Emergency Department?

McConnell, K. John

doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2005.05.013

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The rationale is that, unlike other services that can be delayed, a patient who consults an ED is not in a position to shop around for the best/least expensive care. So delaying access to EDs to avoid paying a deductible can save costs in the short term, but may also worsen a patient's condition, resulting in higher costs for the HMO in the long term [48]. In this view, using a deductible to cover ED care is not financially wise.…”

Section: Patient Responsibility: Copayment Deductibles and Ed Care Cmentioning

confidence: 91%

Cost Reduction Strategies for Emergency Services: Insurance Role, Practice Changes and Patients Accountability

Simonet

2008

Health Care Anal

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Progress in medicine and the subsequent extension of health coverage has meant that health expenditure has increased sharply in Western countries. In the United States, this rise was precipitated in the 1980s, compounded by an increase in drug consumption which prompted the government to re-examine its financial support to care delivery, most notably in hospital care and emergencies services. In California for example, 50 emergency service providers were closed between 1990 and 2000, and nine in 1999-2000 alone. In that State, only 355 hospitals (out of 568) have maintained emergency services departments (Darves, WebMB, 2001). Reforming hospital Emergency Department (ED) operations requires caution not only because the media pay a lot of attention to ED operations, but also because it raises ethical issues: this became more apparent with the enactment of the EMTALA which stipulates that federally funded hospitals are required to give emergency aid in order to "stabilize" a patient suffering from an "emergency medical condition" before discharging or transferring that patient to another facility. While in essence the law aims to preserve patient access to care, physicians assert that the EMTALA leads to more patients seeking care for non-urgent conditions in EDs (GAO, Report to Congressional Committees, 2001), leading to overcrowding, delayed care for patients with true emergency needs, and forcing hospitals to divert ambulances to other facilities resulting in further delays in urgent care. Also, fewer physicians are willing to be on-call in emergency departments because the EMTALA law requires on-call physicians to provide uncompensated care. Thus there is a need to find a balance between appropriate care to be provided to ED patients, and low costs since uncompensated care is not covered by state or federal funds. This concerns, first and foremost, hospitals that provide a greater amount of uncompensated care (e.g. hospitals serving communities with a higher population of illegal immigrants). Looking at the intrinsic causes of high ED costs, the paper first explains why costs of care provided in EDs are high, and look at a major cause of high ED costs: overcrowding and ED users' characteristics. This is followed by a discussion on a much-debated factor: the use of EDs for non-emergency conditions, a practice which has often been accused of disproportionately raising costs. We look at various mechanisms used either to divert or prevent the patient from using ED: these include triage services; and the role of HMOs in the ED chain of care: though the US government has increasingly relied on Managed Care organizations to contain costs (e.g. Medicaid and Medicare Managed Care), do HMOs make a difference when it comes to ED costs? Of particular interest is the family physician acting as a gatekeeper, and the legislation that was enacted to protect those who bypass the referral system. We then look at the other end of the ED chain (i.e. the recipient): the financial responsibility of ED users has increased. Alternativ...

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Section: Patient Responsibility: Copayment Deductibles and Ed Care Cmentioning

confidence: 91%

Cost Reduction Strategies for Emergency Services: Insurance Role, Practice Changes and Patients Accountability

Simonet

2008

Health Care Anal

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“…Las posibles soluciones pasan por mejorar la eficiencia (hacer más con lo mismo), aumentar la financiación pública (hacer más con más), incrementarla de forma privada (copagos) o racionar las prestaciones (listas de espera). Es evidente que todavía estamos lejos de conseguir, al menos en España, una situación menos ineficiente de nuestro SSP (uso inapropiado de ingresos, estancias y tecnología; excesivo gasto farmacéutico, escasa coordinación de la gestión hospitalaria con la primaria, inexistencia de red socio-sanitaria, no traslado de riesgos a los agentes, etc) 25,26 . El racionamiento de las prestaciones sólo puede darse en sistemas donde la demanda, aunque alta, obedece a una necesidad real de salud y donde existe una oferta adecuada de proveedores, lo que no es el caso de España.…”

Section: Equidad Y Urgenciasunclassified

Economía y equidad en urgencias y emergencias

Moreno-Millán¹,

Tejedor-Fernández

Torres-Murillo

et al. 2010

Anales Sis San Navarra

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“…The extent to which they achieve these goals is widely debated (Gramm 1994;Massaro and Wong 1995;Pauly and Goodman 1995;Thorpe 1995;Hsiao 1995;Dixon 2002;Davis 2004;Lee and Zapert 2005;McConnell 2005;Robinson 2005;Bloche 2006Bloche , 2007Buntin et al 2006;Remler and Glied 2006;Baicker, Dow and Wolfson 2007;Woolhandler and Himmelstein 2007;Haseltine 2013;McKee and Busse 2013;Park 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The key aims of MSAs include: (1) encouraging personal responsibility for health and health care; (2) increasing provider choice for patients; (3) enhancing financial protection; (4) improving efficiency; and (5) controlling health-care costs. The extent to which they achieve these goals is widely debated (Gramm, 1994; Hsiao, 1995; Massaro and Wong, 1995; Pauly and Goodman, 1995; Thorpe, 1995; Dixon, 2002; Davis, 2004; Lee and Zapert, 2005; McConnell, 2005; Robinson, 2005; Bloche, 2006, 2007; Buntin et al, 2006; Remler and Glied, 2006; Baicker et al , 2007; Woolhandler and Himmelstein, 2007; Haseltine, 2013; McKee and Busse, 2013; Park, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical savings accounts: assessing their impact on efficiency, equity and financial protection in health care

Wouters

Cylus

Yang

et al. 2016

HEPL

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Medical savings accounts (MSAs) allow enrolees to withdraw money from earmarked funds to pay for health care. The accounts are usually accompanied by out-of-pocket payments and a high-deductible insurance plan. This article reviews the association of MSAs with efficiency, equity, and financial protection. We draw on evidence from four countries where MSAs play a significant role in the financing of health care: China, Singapore, South Africa, and the United States of America. The available evidence suggests that MSA schemes have generally been inefficient and inequitable and have not provided adequate financial protection. The impact of these schemes on long-term health-care costs is unclear. Policymakers and others proposing the expansion of MSAs should make explicit what they seek to achieve given the shortcomings of the accounts.2

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What Do Health Savings Accounts Mean for the Emergency Department?

Cited by 3 publications

References 26 publications

Cost Reduction Strategies for Emergency Services: Insurance Role, Practice Changes and Patients Accountability

Cost Reduction Strategies for Emergency Services: Insurance Role, Practice Changes and Patients Accountability

Economía y equidad en urgencias y emergencias

Medical savings accounts: assessing their impact on efficiency, equity and financial protection in health care

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