Colorado patients who visit freestanding emergency departments for non-life threatening concerns may mistakenly end up paying vastly higher bills for care that could be provided by less-expensive urgent care centers, according to an analysis by the .
For instance, the cost of treatment for bronchitis at an ER facility was nearly 10 times what it was at urgent care centers.
, concentrated mainly in affluent suburbs, has added potentially life-saving services, but also has raised concerns that patients who mistake the ERs for urgent care clinics can find themselves on the hook for hefty bills and contribute to an overall rise in insurance costs.
The CIVHC, a non-profit that tracks health care costs, and, using median payment numbers, compared costs at eight identifiable stand-alone ERs and hospital-based ERs and to those at urgent care clinics. It also looked at the top reasons Coloradans pursued immediate care at urgent care clinics as well as both freestanding and hospital-based ERs.
Seven of the top 10 reasons patients visited stand-alone ERs were for non-life threatening conditions. Among those conditions, costs varied dramatically between ERs and urgent care. Treatment for an ankle sprain that cost $300 at an urgent care clinic cost $1,060 at an ER. A urinary tract infection that cost $100 to treat at urgent care spiked to $980 at an ER.
Other non-emergency conditions such as an open wound on a finger, upper respiratory infection, sore throat and ear infection also showed significant cost differences.
Proposed of potentially higher costs at freestanding ER facilities failed to pass during the last legislative session.
