If you go to an emergency room (ER) or take a loved one there, you likely aren't expecting the same level of personalized care that you receive in your doctor's office or if you checked in for a scheduled hospital stay. However, emergency room patients are entitled to a specific standard of care. When that doesn't occur and a patient is further injured or sickened as a result, legal action may be warranted.
So what responsibilities do emergency room staff members have to their patients? That's covered under something called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. This law applies to any hospital that gets reimbursement from Medicare, which is just about all of them.