Inability to Access Quality Healthcare Costing American Society Millions 7 INABILITY TO ACCESS QUALITY HEALTHCARE COSTING AMERICAN SOCIETY MILLIONS US hospitals see cases in their emergency departments costing thousands of dollars that could have been avoided if patients had better access to care and were consequently better educated about their health and preventative quality care measures had been taken This study investigated data of an Orange County CA based health system informal conversation with emergency department ED staff and nurse case managers of the investigated organization Results are indicative that if patients received normal preventative care by a primary care provider aligned with quality care measures unnecessary costly emergency department visits could have been drastically reduced avoiding public and private insurer reimbursement as well as unpaid patient debt that burden health care organizations Keywords healthcare reform quality care emergency department utilization INABILITY TO ACCESS QUALITY HEALTHCARE COSTING AMERICAN SOCIETY MILLIONS The cost of a single emergency department visit is approximately 1 300 00 and this does not even include lab tests or professional fees I felt it important to investigate this further due to such uncertainty of the future of socialized medicine and the question that even if the patient is not paying the price for these emergency services someone must be
