The U.S. could slash health-care costs with two fundamental changes

Re:The U.S. could slash health-care costs with two fundament... by mschuster91 on Tuesday November 12, 2019 @03:25PM (#21517760)

> How exactly? Since it would do the same thing as ER, it would cost as much to operate as ER.

No. The ER and its expensive specialists (e.g. trauma/accident specialists) can be reserved doing their actual specialized jobs (taking care of patients injured in car crashes, for example) without being clogged by some dude with a toothache. The ER only handles the real hardcore cases that can escalate to death in a matter of seconds, and the urgent-care facility only handles the "everyday" harmless stuff, which needs less and especially less-certified/experienced and thus cheaper staff.

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Re:The U.S. could slash health-care costs with two fundament... by xyzzyz on Tuesday November 12, 2019 @03:49PM (#21518038)

The ERs should already be doing this: if they have too much toothache cases for one trauma surgeon, they clearly won’t add a second trauma surgeon to the shift, they will add a general practitioner. If the trauma surgeon is not busy putting car crash victims together, he can handle the toothache just fine: he is already getting paid anyway, so it doesn’t make sense to keep him idle.

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Re:The U.S. could slash health-care costs with two fundament... by noelsusman on Tuesday November 12, 2019 @08:58PM (#21520493)

You're just describing the triage process that already exists.

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