Most Bankruptcies Caused by Medical Bills

Greg Webb — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:27:50 GMT

A study recently published online in The American Journal of Medicine reports that nearly two out of three bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. This report likely understates the problem, because the data was collected prior to the current economic crisis. Researchers at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, and Ohio University surveyed 2,314 randomly-selected bankruptcy filers during early 2007, discovering that medical problems contributed to 62.1% of all bankruptcies. This proportion represents a 50% rise since 2001.

The authors noted that the financial strain from medical bills affects middle-class families as well as the poor and uninsured. Among families bankrupted by medical bills, those with private insurance averaged bills of $17,749, while uninsured families faced an average of $26,971. Those families who had health insurance but lost it during their illness reported average bills of $22,568. About half of these expenses were hospital costs, followed by prescription drugs (18.6%), doctor’s bills (15.1%) and insurance premiums (4.1%), with medical equipment and nursing home care at the bottom of the list. Neurological problems left patients with the highest out-of-pocket expenses at $34,167, followed by diabetes, injuries, strokes, mental illness, and heart disease.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Greg Webb

Studies Show Emergency Rooms Overwhelmed By Uninsured

Greg Webb — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT

A recent report, released by the American College of Emergency Physicians, states the nation’s system of emergency rooms is in serious trouble. More and more unemployed or uninsured Americans are turning to emergency rooms as a last resort becaue emergency rooms are legally obligated to see all patients who enter their doors, regardless of the patient's ability to pay. Doctors warn that the facilities, which are already overburdened, could have even more trouble handling cases of broken bones, heart attacks and other traumas that they deem their core mission. Even before the recession, emergency rooms around the country were reporting dangerously long waits for patients and the frequent need to redirect ambulances to other hospitals. Just two years ago, a government survey found there were about 120 million visits to emergency rooms annually, a third higher than a decade earlier. Even then doctors called emergency rooms overburdened, so a recession will just make conditions worse; hospitals will have to absorb the unpaid medical bills and some are already experiencing a much higher influx of patients without insurance.

escalating number of uninsured and the delays in getting primary care create a crisis. One of the physicians’ major concerns is the potentially long wait by patients requiring a hospital bed. After surveying its members last year, the doctor’s group learned of at least two hundred fatalities related to the practice of “boarding”, in which patients on stretchers line the corridors of the facility until they can be moved into a bed.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Greg Webb

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Most Bankruptcies Caused by Medical Bills

Studies Show Emergency Rooms Overwhelmed By Uninsured