ER Visits Increase To Highest Recorded Level
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This is a 10-million visit increase over 2013 when there were 130.4 million visits, according to the
"Clearly emergency departments are providing a valuable service that most patients can't get anywhere else," said
The top reasons for emergency visits include chest pain, stomach pain, shortness of breath, injury and pain. Chronic disease was a factor in many emergency visits, with hypertension being the most frequent condition (21.1 percent), followed by diabetes (9.8 percent) asthma (8 percent), depression (8 percent), substance abuse (5.6 percent) coronary artery disease (5 percent), and COPD (4.9 percent). Injuries accounted for an estimated 40 million visits, with the highest injury rates among those aged 75 and older. However, this represents a decrease since 2009, when there were 45 million visits, reflecting the success of many injury prevention programs.
"A growing number of patients also are coming to emergency departments with mental health problems and opiate overdoses," said
Waiting times continued to improve, with 32 percent of patients waiting less than 15 minutes to see a medical provider, and 68 percent being seen in under an hour. An estimated 10 percent of patients spent more than 6 hours in the emergency department.
This is the first year that Medicaid and CHIP accounted for the largest expected source of payment, at 34.9 percent. Next was private insurance (34.6 percent), Medicare (17.5 percent) and no insurance (11.8 percent).
"This is a success story," said
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