Emergency rooms have a system that they use in order to decide which of the people who are sitting in the waiting room should be seen next. Typically, those who have the most serious medical conditions are treated first. The type of insurance a person has could play a part. Surveys show that people who are VIPs will have shorter waiting times.
The emergency room is not designed to be anyone’s primary source of health care. It is where you go when you are having an actual medical emergency. Even then, you probably will have to sit around and wait to be seen. Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to be a VIP.
Surveys confirm what many of us sarcastically suspected. The most reliable way to cut your wait time in the ER waiting room is to be someone whom the hospital considers to be a VIP.
VIPs are not getting shortened wait times because of the type of health insurance they have, or because their health insurance is better than yours is. Let’s say you both came into the ER with the exact same health condition, at the exact same time. Your wait time would be about four hours (on average) before you would be seen by a doctor. The VIP, however, would probably only have to wait for about one hour.
A survey was done of more than 100 doctors who worked in emergency departments, from all across the United States. The survey was conducted by a group called Truth on Call for msnbc.com. Out of the 100 doctors in the survey, 84 of them said that they had given (or would give) extra attention to a patient who was “influential”.
Famous people get seen sooner than the average person would. People who donate large sums of money to a hospital get treated much quicker than the typical person does. The family members of the famous person, or the financial donors, also get quicker treatment than you would (or that your family members would get).
The hospitals are giving the same quality of care to both VIPs and average people. The difference shows up in the “extras” that are offered only to the VIP. You sit around in the waiting room for four hours, but the VIP only waits for one hour.
You get treated for the medical condition that made you come to the ER. Then, you either get sent home, or you get admitted. This is the same for the VIP. However, if the VIP needs to charge her cell phone while she is at the ER, this is usually going to be allowed. If the VIP wants someone to go get him a particular food from outside of the hospital, chances are that someone will go fetch it. Average people are not going to get that kind of service.
The hospitals treat the VIPs quicker because they feel that it is “good business” to do so. These are the people who gave the hospital a lot of money. The staff at the hospital might go out of their way to show their appreciation for that donation. Some hospitals also feel that treating a VIP exceptionally well is sort of like an “insurance policy”. If the hospital needs another donation in the future, perhaps that VIP will feel like being financially generous once again.
Image by Taber Andrew Bain on Flickr