EMTALA: dedicating an emergency department near you.

Why the EMTALA Mandate for Emergency Care Does not Equal Healthcare “Coverage”

House GOP members Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-ID) recently made alarming and misleading statements about American emergency departments’ role in U.S. healthcare. In March of this year, while speaking with CNN’s New Day host Alisyn Camerota, Mr. Meadows stated: “The goal is to allow access to all. There’s a federal law right now that if you show up at a hospital, you get c...

EMTALA and patients with psychiatric emergencies: a review of relevant case law.

STUDY OBJECTIVE Emergency department (ED) care for patients with psychiatric complaints has become increasingly challenging given recent nationwide declines in available inpatient psychiatric beds. This creates pressure to manage psychiatric patients in the ED or as outpatients and may place providers and institutions at risk for liability under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EM...

Bankruptcy, medical insurance, and a law with unintended consequences.

Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) in 1986, guaranteeing a standard of medical care to anyone who entered an emergency room. This guarantee made default a more reliable substitute for medical insurance. I construct a tractable structural model of the medical insurance market and find that repealing EMTALA would increase the fraction of the population w...

The enduring role of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is a seminal law that imposes screening, stabilization, and transfer duties on all Medicare-participating hospitals that have emergency departments. More than twenty-five years after its enactment, EMTALA continues to generate controversy over the scope and depth of its obligations on issues ranging from the nature of the screening o...

Do SANE examinations satisfy the EMTALA requirement for "medical screening"? Sexual assault nurse examiners. Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.