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Hospital offers emergency room appointments

May 5, 2011

In need of medical care, but not wanting to risk a long wait in a hospital emergency room?

Patients can now call ahead and set an appointment for a visit to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center’s emergency room in San Luis Obispo foregoing a stay in the waiting room.

Utilizing the online service InQuickER, Sierra Vista provides a registration form to be filled out before arrival and offers patients a list of time slots throughout the day allowing patients to wait in the comfort of their homes.

The program deals with laws requiring very ill patients to be seen first by resetting some appointments.

If one or more patients with serious medical problems arrive at the hospital or an emergency occurs, hospital staff will provide the InQuickER patient with a new appointment time. The new program is intended for patients with non-life threatening medical conditions only.

The hospital charges $9.99 for the service with costs refunded if the patient has to wait more than 15 minutes from their scheduled appointment time.

In addition, emergency room patients can go to www.SierraVistaRegional.com and check current wait times in the emergency room before they leave home.


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This is just a preparation for more government regulations. Typical.


Without getting too involved (I’ll only say read this or this and go from there), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed new regulations regarding the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). Basically, the ER is the WORST place to wait in a hospital as far as contagions and such, not to mention the severe depression a tax-paying worker covering their own costs would face…


Anyway, the whole health care system is a mess, and more government WILL make it worse, anyone who says otherwise is either trying to sell you something (hellow AARP) or flat out lying (hello congress).


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Rather than point and shake fingers at people who need basic health services they can’t afford (which, by the way, includes the finger shakers), it would be better to turn our attention to the insurance-based health care system that shakes down all in a true democratic spirit. I urge you all to google SB810, the California Universal Health Care Act that has twice been approved by the state legislature, and vetoed by the terminator. It’s about health care finance, and universal coverage for all residents of CA, at a fraction of costs levied by the insurance and health care industries most resistant to reform. The bill, by severing the tie between employment and affordable health care, will allow some the freedom to get out of a dead-end job because of its benefits. By relieving the employer of health care for the worker, it will draw manufacturing to CA by reducing labor costs. Whose ox gets gored? Not the doctors. Not the hospitals. The bureaucrats. Check it out.


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SB810–authored by Senator Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, February, 2005–VETOED.

February, 2009, Senator Leno, D-San Francisco, re-introduced the same bill–VETOED.

At least Arnold did some things right.


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Your lack of specific criticism of what is in the bill, or any discussion of why the veto was the right thing to do, implies your ox might be one of those whose fattening is dependent upon exploitation of the desperate. Either that or you’re some of those types who see life as a zero-sum game wherein one’s status and sense of self-worth is measured against the number of those less fortunate. Pasoparents? If your children are still in grammar school, you should talk to them. They can clue you in about fairness and the benefits of cooperation, things still fresh to them from playground activity – plays well with others.


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As one of 50,700,000 uninsured American Citizens, I’ve never felt entitled to free medical care. Like most I go to work every day without heath coverage benefits. Being self employed with a pre-existing condition has left me uninsured, nor am I eligible for for life insurance. I’ll likely be dead before I am can claim social security retirement or medicare.


The kicker. I was recently informed by my doctor that I qualify for permanent disability and he encourage me to do it so that I could be covered by medical. My problem is that I don’t want to stop working and live off public assistance in poverty at the age of 46.


I use the services of CHC, were I wait in line behind all the people you think consider themselves “entitled” I would not wish my experience or medical bills on anyone.


FYI, I was insured with Blue Cross most of my adult life and all my childhood free of any medical conditions expect for 2 childhood sport related fractures and 1 adult sport related fracture. In my 40’s I became diabetic that lead to heart disease causing CHF (congestive heart failure). Of course Blue Cross dropped me at the first sign of medical need. I have applied and been denied by every health insurance company that does business in California.


Even before my medical issues became apparent, I have always thought our country should have some form of universal heath care to benefit all American Citizens. Now I don’t care if it is a universal plan, a government mandated plan the forces a health insurance company to provide affordable coverage, or a government provided plan for the uninsured and uninsureable. Before I was dropped my health insurance monthly premium was almost $600 with a $5,000 deductible as a single person.


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That sucks Bob. Sadly you’re being penalized for being a hard-working self-employed American citizen. If you had the same health problems but you were on welfare or you were incarcerated, you’d get way better healthcare.


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Bob, I would not blame you for going on disability at all. If you do not use our tax dollars some white collar criminal we call CEO’s at banks and stock agencies or a politician will steal that money anyway. Better you get some use from it then those kind.


And you are the reason we need either universal health care or laws to change where private insurance companies cannot deny an ailing person coverage at a rate adjusted to their income.


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I thought an emergency room was where you go when urgency doesn’t afford an injured or very sick person the time to call your doctor and make an appointment?

Looks like the illegal’s and those who consider themselves “entitled” to free medical have swamped us.


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Yep. It’s not the illegal aliens–er, I mean “undocumented workers”–who are going to log in to use this service. They don’t need to.


I’ve been in 3 different ER’s in this county. EVERY single time the waiting room is full of folks who speak zero Ingles. They need a hospital translator to answer basic questions and to fill out necessary forms. Many are pregnant and ready to pop. No need to make appointments like the rest of us schmucks. Just show up at any ER with no money and bingo! You’re in. They jump to the head of the line, get transferred to the maternity ward and presto! Another welfare-destined American citizen is born. Viva Estados Unidos!


Now go to Mexico, refuse to speak Spanish and enter a hospital with no money. Let’s see if you’re treated the same way. And, while you’re at it, try to enroll your kids in their public schools or try to get a Mexican driver’s license.


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I can most definitely share in your frustration. H o w e v e r…


Keep in mind that our nation is one of persistent enabling and doublespeak.


Until California employers stops heavily relying on Mexican and South American nationals to plant, plow, and harvest our salads, bottle our wine, construct our buildings, nanny our children, drive our cabs, dig our ditches, mow our lawns, cook in our restaurants and clean our office buildings, these families and individuals will need some form of medical care to sustain them – and so the economy of the eighth largest world economy that is the Golden State. One cannot have it both ways and then complain about it.


As for the double standard in Mexico, I could care less about getting a driver’s license there. Sounds like they’re a step ahead of us in enforcing the law. If we are to point the finger, it’s first at ourselves.


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Correct, a real honest emergency is just that. You need to be seen at once. This whole thing has been morphed into a Med-Stop type business where you go when you have no insurance and no doctor. And the ER cannot refuse service if you have no $. So in fact, there is health care for all in a way but this method is really expensive for us.


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