From the trenches

An ER physician's number one 'pet peeve' in Emergency Medicine:

#1. Asking for a Prescription for Motrin or Tylenol - I really wish that President Obama could spend just one day with us in the ER before formalizing his plans for universal health-care. The current government insurance program, Medicaid, is so frequently abused that if we nationalize it, the collapse of the stock market and major banks would be a pleasant memory in comparison. This program was made available to low income and special needs families so that their children would not suffer from an inability to pay for medical care. If someone is financially treading water and they need a prescription for Tylenol, I would be so happy to write it for them. So why the fuss?

The people most commonly asking for these prescriptions usually show up to the ER with their $100 specialty manicure, cigarettes poking out of their pocket or purse and talking incessantly on their $300 cell phone. Or immigrants who for some reason are on Medicaid and want to save an extra $10 to send “back home”. Both of these specialty populations show up with febrile children who haven’t had a dose of fever medicine since their fever spiked. And it is our responsibility as tax-payers to foot the bill.

Why this annoys me so much is because there are loads of other people out there with legitimate medical needs and no way of getting assistance – Autistic kids that can’t get treatments because they’re so expensive and their parents make just enough money to not qualify for assistance, cancer patients (young and old) who cannot afford chemo for the same reason, people with outrageous medical bills that are at the brink of bankrupcy [sic] and the list goes on. Taxing Medicaid with over-the-counter prescriptions as well as inappropriate ambulance rides and ER visits (for example, to get a pregnancy test) ends up taxing the medical system so that others suffer. There must be a way to prevent this wholesale abuse, but I for one, have not figured out how just yet.