Presented by: Dr. Jeffrey Bettinger, MD, FACEP
Total Run Time: 41:55

All advocates for fair emergency services reimbursement need to have a clear understanding of the drivers that initially constructed the economic model that allowed Emergency Medicine to become the jewel of America’s healthcare system, and how those drivers have come under assault. Beginning sixty years ago, a handful of great men and women – visionaries – recognized the need for highly-trained and fearless physicians and first-responders to stand ready for anything that might breach the ED doors every minute of every day. Emergency Medicine, simply did not exist prior. Since then, Emergency Medicine has defined itself as much by tending to the critically ill and injured as by serving as the enduring safety net for the nation’s populace.

For the first thirty years, the specialty relied on the shared stewardship economic model. Operating largely without government subsidies, reimbursement for emergency care services was distributed widely across the payer community, allowing around-the-clock, quality emergency care to be available regardless of the patient’s ability to pay, and despite the fact that emergency departments need to remain fully functional when no patients occupied the beds.

Now emergency care is being starved of oxygen. Over the last three decades – wanting only to pay the smallest amount for their beneficiaries – payers have ignored the shared stewardship model that is so critical to maintaining access to emergency services. The patients suffer. The providers suffer. And the payers thrive.

Now that the No Surprises Act has accelerated the race to the bottom for economic support to our nation’s emergency medical system, where do we go from here? Will payers sit idly by as access to quality emergency care dries up? Will emergency care become a scarce commodity available only to a select few during “business” hours? Or will a concerted effort be made to save this tarnished jewel? This free webinar will explore the economic history of emergency services, and suggest different economic scenarios intended to rescue a specialty that has rescued so many.