Hospital aims to reduce traffic in its ER

BRANDON - With $34 million in uncompensated care for uninsured patients in 2007, hospital officials here are scrambling to find innovative ways to make up at least a fraction of their losses and lessen wait times in the emergency room.

When patients with no insurance and noncritical needs come to the emergency room for treatment at Brandon Regional or at South Bay Hospital in Sun City Center, they now are given several options: Pay $150 up front to cover the bill or seek help at one of the many walk-in clinics in the area.

The alternative is to get treatment without paying, then suffer the loss of personal credit down the road.

So far, the program hasn't been very successful, said Brandon Regional marketing director Melonie Hall.

"A little bit of it is cultural. So many people still feel the ER is for anything and everything," Hall said. "We have such a huge job to educate people."

"The results have been mixed, at best," said Brandon Regional Chief Executive Officer Mike Fencel. "Obviously, our priority is to provide health care to all that come. But, paying customers end up helping to pay for uncompensated care."

Twenty-one percent of Floridians are uninsured, according to the federal Web site healthreform.gov. And employer-covered insurance decreased from 54 percent to 50 percent between 2000 and 2007. Much of the decline is among workers in small businesses, which make up 78 percent of Florida businesses, according to the site.

And the overall quality of care in Florida is rated as "weak," according to the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. Preventive care, which keeps people healthier and out of the hospital, is lacking, according to the agency. That, too, is directly related to a lack of health insurance.

With national health care reform on the table, Fencel said he knows as a high earner he and people like him will likely pay more in insurance costs. But the hospital will receive direct benefits if more people are covered, which, in turn, will help those who do have insurance.

Hall said she is compiling a verified list of clinics in the Brandon area and may do a similar list for South Shore if the public expresses interest. She said the list should be available in the coming weeks.

If the program takes off, it should cut down on wait times for more critical patients coming to the ER and could result in a decrease in uncompensated care.