Title: Can Homeless People Go to the Hospital? - HomelessAdvice.com
Headings: Can Homeless People Go to the Hospital?
Can Homeless People Go to the Hospital?
Content: The USA also has a healthcare problem and that’s just as obvious to anybody who’s had to see a doctor or visit a hospital without insurance, or those who tried to get insurance with a pre-existing condition. So with both of these problems in our country, it seems that homeless people would really have a tough time when it comes to going to a hospital or getting medical attention. The average homeless person certainly can’t afford health insurance if the average working person without benefits can’t. Well a few years ago I was homeless myself in Calfornia and there were a few times I had to go to the hospital and other times I had to see a doctor and some of it was difficult, but it was not as hard as I expected it to be. So here’s the low-down on how homeless people can go to the hospital, pay their bills, or get to see a doctor when they have something seriously wrong with them. What Hospitals Do for the Homeless
As a homeless person, you can visit any hospital in the United States and they cannot turn you away if it’s something that’s immediately life-threatening. If it’s not, they may accept you in the emergency room but they won’t run any tests or try to fix whatever is wrong with you if it’s not deemed to be life-threatening. For example, if you’re feeling light-headed and have chest pains, they’ll accept you in the emergency room if you just walk in and they’ll run any necessary tests to make sure it’s not a heart attack or other serious problem. But if they run these tests and discover you also have cancer, they usually won’t treat your cancer unless you’re on the verge of dying from it. I knew a homeless man who had liver cirrhosis and doctors said he had less than a few months to live, but they wouldn’t give him a liver transplant or operate on him because it wasn’t immediately life-threatening and because the operation was risky and not guaranteed to work.