EMALTA Applies to All Patients
The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Assisted Labor Act -- a law designed to prohibit hospitals from engaging in a practice known as "patient dumping" -- applies to all patients regardless of income, according to a federal judge in New Jersey.
In an opinion in Love v. Rancocas Hospital, U.S. District Judge Joseph E. Irenas of the District of New Jersey said that while the circuits were split on the issue "the better view is represented by those courts which hold that EMTALA applies regardless of the patient's ability to pay or whether the patient has health insurance." The Judge also explained EMTALA requires a hospital to provide "for such further medical examination and such treatment as may be required to stabilize the medical condition," and prohibits a hospital from discharging a person with an emergency medical condition before the patient is stabilized.
The Sixth Circuit had ruled many years ago that EMTALA applies to all patients (Cleland v. Bronson Health Care Group, 917 F.2d 266, 270 (6th Cir. 1990)), but this opinion reminds us that this cause of action is available in appropriate cases.
Read an article about this opinion here. Read the opinion itself here.