EMTALA proposal would allow hospitals to share resources

American Medical News reports that the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed adjusting its on-call policies under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which was designed to prevent emergency departments (EDs) from "dumping" uninsured or Medicaid patients at public hospitals. Under terms of the proposal, a group of hospitals in a particular region would have the option of designating one of the facilities as the on-call site for a specific time period, for a specific service, or both. Individual hospitals with EDs still would be required to screen each emergency patient and to have a plan for how to proceed if a needed on-call physician was not available. Some hospitals have complained that they are being stretched too thin trying to meet the demands for physician availability under the terms of EMTALA. The American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons submitted a comment in support of this proposal on June 13, 2008.
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