Emergency patients who require follow-up outpatient treatment frequently don’t receive it, putting patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma at extreme risk. Two articles in the Annals of Emergency Medicine depict a healthcare system inadequate to the needs of emergency medicine’s most vulnerable patients: the uninsured and the suicidal. With only 68% of physicians willing to provide charity care, the uninsured or underinsured often don’t have access to physicians outside the emergency department. The situation is even worse for patients who have attempted suicide. Studies show that patients who survive suicide attempts are at risk for repeat attempts with more lethal methods. More than 50% of the study’s respondents in California said their ED had no mental health professional to evaluate suicidal patients. “Emergency physicians provide care to many of our nation’s most at-risk patients,” said Frederick Blum, MD, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians. “Unfortunately, once they leave the emergency department, they have to fend for themselves.”
