Cost of heart-attack care deters some

Cost of heart-attack care deters some
Uninsured, underinsured more likely to wait hours to get help, study finds


Medical experts say it's best to go quickly to the nearest hospital if you experience chest pains.

But a national study found that the uninsured and those with insufficient health insurance are likely to delay emergency care for a heart attack for more than six hours because of the costs.

The American Heart Association recommends that hospitals also move quickly to screen patients to see whether they're having a full-blown heart attack. The association recommends that hospitals meet a goal of restoring blood flow within 90 minutes. Some heart experts think the goal should be an hour.

Researchers found that 49percent of uninsured people and 45 percent of the underinsured put off care despite having symptoms of a heart attack, according to the study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. By comparison, 39 percent of insured patients delay care.

Researchers interviewed 3,721 heart-attack patients over three years at 24 hospitals across the country.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/05/22/cost-of-heart-attack-care-deters-some.html?sid=101

oh 20 some years ago in Tijuana. Patient was experiencing a full fledged heart attack... but he did not want to go to the hospital because of the cost. I finally convinced him and we transported to a US Hospital. On the plus side, we saved him the cost of the ALS transport. He would have died if he did sign my Against Medical Advise form... and we lost half an hour in me explaining to him WHY he'd die.

Sadly I had to have a fight at the ER, since he DID NOT have insurance. Those were the days when US Hospitals turned the uninsured away.