AAEM Calls for Emergency Department Funding, Action Against Fee-Splitting

[CAL/AAEM News Service]

AAEM Calls for Emergency Department Funding, Action Against Fee-Splitting 

Source: AAEM (http://www.aaem.org)
Date: June 14, 2006


MILWAUKEE - Additional funding for hospitals that care for the under- or uninsured along
with increased scrutiny over the practice of fee-splitting are needed to improve the
health of the nation's emergency departments, according to the American Academy of
Emergency Medicine (AAEM).

The AAEM is calling for those changes in response to today's report, "The Future of
Emergency Care in the United States Health System," released by the independent Institute
of Medicine (IOM). Findings show the demand for emergency care is rising, even as the
capacity of hospitals, ambulance services and other emergency workers to provide it is
falling.

That rising capacity is in part due to the growing number of uninsured or grossly
under-insured (Medicaid recipients) in the United States who receive much of their
medical care in the emergency department. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active
Labor Act (EMTALA) combats the discriminatory practice of some hospitals transferring,
discharging, or refusing to treat indigent patients coming to the emergency department.
Fulfilling this mandate has led to some emergency departments going out of business or
physicians not receiving compensation for treating these patients.

Those are several of the reasons why the AAEM supports the IOM's recommendation that
Congress appropriate funds for hospitals that provide large amounts of under, or
uncompensated emergency and trauma care.

"We can no longer breathe with such a tight financial stranglehold," said Tom Scaletta,
MD, FAAEM, current President of AAEM.

While additional Congressional funding for emergency departments is necessary in order to
provide optimal patient care, the AAEM is also calling upon Congress to scrutinize and
take action against the practice of illegal fee-splitting. Fee-splitting is a common
practice in emergency medicine in which the contract owner or management company takes an
excessive portion of the physician-generated fees for management expenses and overhead,
well beyond fair market value.

If fee-splitting were eliminated from the cycle of patient care in the emergency
department, all resources could be focused on care delivery. That would lead to more
resources to go toward additional physician staffing, at essentially no additional cost
to the general public, Scaletta said.  "We are seeking relief in the form of funds to
subsidize the EMTALA mandate and in the government's help with eliminating the
third-party profiteering that is running rampant in our field."

More information on this report can be found at: 

http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3809/16107/35007.aspx 

CONTACT: Kay Whalen, AAEM Executive Director 
PHONE: (800) 884-2236; kwhalen at aaem.org 


Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/


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