I was in the ER last month when I was found passed out in the shower...

[yellowdogintexas]

49. these days, medically necessary and usual & customary treatment

will limit unnecessary testing to a certain extent.

A public hospital will be supported by taxes. Often they are called the "county Hospital" No one can be turned away, they always accept Medicaid, and they have a huge number of services that are written off due to inability pay, insurance negotiated rates etc.

Our public hospital is John Peter Smith, which had one of the first residencies in Family Practice. It is also a Level 1 Trauma Center, which is the best available. Injured First Responders are always taken there, and severe trauma cases. The next closest one to the west is in Lubbock I believe. Our Hospital taxes are on our property tax bill, and I am glad they are because it means every property owner in the county is helping keep that place running. Parkland, where JFK was taken, is a public hospital and also a Level 1 trauma center.

You are quite correct regarding uninsured patients in the ER. Free standing walk in clinics will want $$ up front which the patient does not have, so people end up in the ER for relatively minor things which end up not being paid. Ironically the free standing clinics are so much less expensive because they are not part of a trauma center.

The whole racket just makes me nuts. Forty years of processing medical claims has made me very militant about it too