I-Team: E.R. Visits Rising

A national study shows a larger portion of the population is visiting emergency departments and doing it more often.

But the study by the the American College of Emergency Physicians found a decrease in the visits by uninsured patients.

Instead a larger number of patients with two or more types of health insurance visited the ER three or more times a year.

The study looked at “heavy users”, people use visited emergency departments three or more times a year between 1996 and 2005. It found a nine percent rise in the number of those users over the ten year period, representing more than 40 million people, or 13.8 percent of the U.S. population.

The largest spike took place from 1999 to 2002, when heavy-use patients increased 28 percent in just three years.

Other than patients covered by insurance, groups that increased their visits includied a growing number of elderly and chronically ill people. Researchers say the study confirms that the poor and the uninsured are not the main contributing factors to emergency department crowding in recent years, but rather elderly patients have increased. They suggest future emergency physicians be trained to treat an aging population that will create additional challenges for health care reform in general.