Quote Originally Posted by daihashi
Many of the things people go to ER are not true emergencies. Sorry it's just FACT. And yes I do know people who work in the ER; paramedics who bring people into the ER. I have a multitude of people in the health care industry and have been confused by people, on THIS site who are in the med industry themselves, as being a doctor because my insight is overwhelming.

I cannot prove it so you'll have to take me at my word, but the system is abused and highly abused at that.

Tell me, what is a legitimate concern that justifies abusing the ER?
That should be the key word here. What is a true emergency? Let's get into the grey area. Infact one thing you perceive as minor, a UTI, a problem where I had to go to the emergency room for. At the time I was battling cancer and while I was recovering through chemo, I felt major pain, which ended up being a UTI. At the time I didn't know it was something relatively minor. But being in a situation like mine, you don't know if that pain could be something else. Would that be abuse of the system? Or merely a legitimate concern? Or another situation. I had low-blood pressure, fainted twice for no reason and had blurred vision and acute headaches for a week. I saw my oncologist and he gave me an order for an MRI and told me to walk into ER. Ended up being nothing. Would you consider that abuse of the system?

With that, it's hard to quantify abuse because you don't know the individual's medical history. So the instances would be quantified as abuse based on fact alone. The underlying circumstance of my situation justifies it and I'm certain in many of those cases, their are circumstances that justify their visit.