COMMENTARY: Mental health parity a myth in Massachusetts
In May, three people were brought into the Quincy Medical Center emergency room. One had suffered a brain hematoma, the second a heart attack, the third a severely fractured ankle.
Each patient was stabilized, and then, due to the severity of the injuries, transferred to a partnering Boston hospital. All three had private insurance, but no phone calls to insurance companies were required. The average length of their emergency room stay was between two and three hours.
During that same time period, three people suffering from acute mental health conditions were brought into the same emergency room. Two had attempted suicide; the third was in the midst of a psychotic episode.
Those patients spent 70, 108, and 78 hours, respectively, on an emergency room gurney while doctors and emergency mental health service providers negotiated with insurance companies and then struggled to find a bed in an appropriate mental health facility.
The suicidal patient who had waited the longest eventually was just discharged straight from the hospital, with no follow-up care scheduled.
These incidents do not represent the typical experience of an emergency room patient at Quincy Medical Center, or any other community hospital.
But the boarding of mental health patients within hospital emergency rooms for 24, 48, and even 72 hours or more is a growing problem.
At a hearing on this issue held by the Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, emergency room physicians and hospital executives testified about the growing amount of time and resources mental health patients consume during their stays in emergency rooms.
A survey conducted by the Massachusetts College of Emergency Physicians on April 11 found 180 mental health patients being boarded in emergency rooms across the state. Of those patients, 40 percent had been waiting for services for more than 24 hours. Five of those patients had been waiting five days for treatment.
how to treat a hematoma - News
One had suffered a brain hematoma, the second a heart attack, the third a severely fractured ankle. Each patient was stabilized, and then, due to the severity of the injuries, transferred to a partnering Boston hospital. All three had private insurance
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