King’s Daughters Medical Center is enacting a new plan intendedto reserve the emergency room for emergencies.

Beginning Tuesday, nurse practitioners and physicians will startscreening ER patients to determine the seriousness of theirailments. Patients with non-emergency conditions will either berecommended to the hospital’s Quick Care Clinic or another primarycare physician, or be required to make a $200 deposit or theapplicable insurance co-pay.

“The purpose of this plan is to decrease the amount of non-urgenttraffic that comes through the ER,” said KDMC Emergency MedicalServices Director Terry Singleton. “So that when your family ormine becomes critically ill, there will be resources available totake care of them.”

Singleton said no one would be turned away from the ER, but thosewho insist on being treated there will be required to make theappropriate financial arrangement. The ER will accept a patient’sinsurance, with co-pay, but if insurance cannot be verified, the$200 deposit will be required.

Other than the new financial requirements, nothing about patientcare in the emergency room will change, Singleton said. A medicaltriage will continue to be conducted on patients upon theirarrival, and patients with serious medical conditions will continueto be treated immediately.

“It’s to improve efficiency – there’s been a high volume ofnon-emergency traffic through the ER that could be moreappropriately taken care of in a clinic setting, so our resourceswill be available for the critically ill,” he said. “It’s forefficiency, speed and the quality of care we provide to thecritically ill or injured.”

KDMC statistics show that 20 percent of the 22,000 ER patientstreated at the hospital each year – 4,400 patients – have noserious medical condition.

“The ER is there for emergencies, traumas, major illnesses – forurgent things that will require you to have a lot of medicalresources thrown at you in a hurry,” said KDMC Chief ExecutiveOfficer Alvin Hoover. “When someone comes in with a runny nose, youhave to use way more resources to take care of that thanneeded.”

Hoover said the $200 total of the new deposit requirementrepresents the minimal cost to the hospital for treating a patientin the ER. Hoover admitted that KDMC has a large number of patientsin the ER who cannot afford to pay their bills, and that number isincreasing.

“With the economy like it is, it’s causing a trickle effect,” hesaid. “Businesses are having a harder time providing insurance topeople, which makes it that much tougher for people to pay and thatmuch tougher for us to collect.”

Hoover said ER patients who are referred to the Quick Care Clinicwill still have to pay for the treatment, though it likely will notbe as much as the ER’s $200 deposit.

The hospital’s charity program may be able to provide payment fortreatment for some patients.

“In some cases we’re willing to see people who can’t afford topay,” Hoover said. “They will have to be willing to submit somefinancial information to us to qualify them for the charityprogram.”

Hoover said the treatment bill would be waived under the charityprogram for those patients who meet the its financial criteria.