Title: What Does EMTALA Really Mean For The Hospital – The Hospital Medical Director
Headings: What Does EMTALA Really Mean For The Hospital
What Does EMTALA Really Mean For The Hospital
Why did EMTALA come to be?
What about free-standing emergency rooms?
What are the implications for physicians?
By James Allen, MD

Content: What Does EMTALA Really Mean For The Hospital – The Hospital Medical Director
Categories
Emergency Department
What Does EMTALA Really Mean For The Hospital
Post author
By James Allen, MD
Post date
October 28, 2019
The EMTALA law was enacted 33 years ago as an “anti-dumping” law. EMTALA fundamentally has 2 main implications for the hospital: how you manage patients in the emergency room and how you manage hospital transfers. It stands for the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act and it placed requirements on hospitals receiving Medicare payments; because almost all hospitals accept Medicare, in practice, it affects nearly all U.S. hospitals. There are 3 obligations that hospitals have under EMTALA: The emergency department must provide a medical screening exam to any patient who requests emergency care, regardless of their health insurance status, their ability to pay, or their citizenship. If the medical screening exam indicates that the patient has an emergency medical condition, then the hospital must provide treatment until the condition resolves or stabilizes and the patient can provide self-care after discharge. If the hospital does not have the capability to treat the patient’s condition, then it must make an appropriate transfer to another hospital that has the capability of treating the patient’s condition and provide medical records to the accepting hospital. Hospitals with specialized capabilities must accept these transfers and provide treatment.