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Passengers Who Call Uber Instead Of An Ambulance Put Drivers At Risk (buzzfeed.com)
Sick people are increasingly using ride-hail to get to the emergency room, putting drivers in an uncomfortable position and a potentially tricky legal bind, BuzzFeed News reports. From the report: Mike Fish was driving for Uber 10 minutes outside of Boston when he picked up a second passenger in his Uber Pool who, he said, seemed "out of it, drowsy -- almost sedated." When the drowsy passenger asked him if Boston's Mass General hospital was the nearest emergency room, "that set off a red flag," Fish told BuzzFeed News. "I said, 'Do you need the ER?' He said yes. It came out that, over the last few days, he'd been passing out and losing consciousness." But instead of calling an ambulance to get the urgent medical attention he needed, the sick passenger called an Uber Pool. The shared ride would save him a few bucks, but it meant he'd have to wait for Fish to drop off the first passenger before he'd get to the ER. "I was a little nervous," Fish said. "I didn't know what was going to happen."
Ride-hail drivers are, by and large, untrained, self-employed workers driving their own cars on a part-time basis. They're not medical professionals. But as health care costs have risen and ride-hail has become more pervasive, people are increasingly relying on Uber and Lyft drivers to get them to the hospital when they need emergency care. A recent (yet to be peer-reviewed) study found that, after Uber enters new markets, the rates of ambulance rides typically go down, meaning fewer people call professionals in favor of the cheaper option.
Ride-hail drivers are, by and large, untrained, self-employed workers driving their own cars on a part-time basis. They're not medical professionals. But as health care costs have risen and ride-hail has become more pervasive, people are increasingly relying on Uber and Lyft drivers to get them to the hospital when they need emergency care. A recent (yet to be peer-reviewed) study found that, after Uber enters new markets, the rates of ambulance rides typically go down, meaning fewer people call professionals in favor of the cheaper option.
More like $15-$25 vs $500-$1000+ more then a few bucks.
What a country.
At least they're not burdened by socialised health care and free-at-the-point-of-use ambulances. Let the markets decide whether they live or die!
You get to keep all the cool cash. But no liability! Hey, it worked with "uber is not a taxi company" schtick, why not now?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Come to Europe. Over here, we think it's wrong to profit from human suffering.
Good Samaritan laws exist for a reason.
Surely no-one will try to argue that Uber is a ride sharing company now?
After a motorcycle accident I was transported to a hospital for a strained shoulder. 24 hours later a firefighter showed up at my door and wedged an invoice under the threshhold. The bill? $1750.
Now this story has an amicable ending because insurance covered this, however like all american healthcare its invoice-first. You're on the hook to pay for this service until you can claim or prove hardship, which in this case required two pay stubs and a gas bill. so if you get paid biweekly, thats a month without paying this bill, which is more than enough time for collectors to begin calling. This assumes you can immediately return to work to get paid, and most ambulance rides mean you arent going back to work anytime soon.
the irony is that if companies like Uber paid any taxes at all, we might have a competent ambulance service that didnt cost as much as a used car.
Good people go to bed earlier.
but honestly, who wants to pay for single payer healthcare? I mean, the cost alone is -$17 trillion
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I've had to go to the ER for a non life threatening injury that prevented me from driving myself. I wish I would have though to call Uber or a cab. It would have saved me thousands.
It's really more of a statement on the cost of an Ambulance ride.
Yes calling Uber or Lyft is not the right choice. They are not medical professionals, if you need care during the ride you are not going to get it. If you are infectious you could cost them days of work as they recover from your disease or cause your disease to spread not only to the driver but to anyone they carry after you. And the liability if your "illness" turns fatal on them.
But then again when a simple Ambulance ride will start at over $1000, if the patient has no insurance or cheap insurance that won't cover it, it can be the only real option they can hope to afford. Even with insurance the cost might be more than they can afford. yes the service has to be paid for but Ambulances are too expensive, claiming they over-charge those who can pay to make up for the poor and indigent patients. Reign in the costs. Or people will keep using Uber and Lyft, or Taxi's to get to medical care without breaking the bank (the Dr./Hospital get to break their bank instead).
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
"over the last few days, he'd been passing out and losing consciousness."
The individual had been putting this off for DAYS, I don't think a 5-30 minute delay in medical attention is going to have much of an effect. Sure you don't want to call an Uber when your are losing a pint of blood a minute from a gushing leg wound but if you've got a condition that is obviously not immediately dangerous what's the difference between a ride in a cab/Uber vs an ambulance besides the +$1,000 bill.
Which such a shitty health system, people use whatever they can to save some extortion money.
Hundreds of thousands also drive to Canada/Mexico or even Cuba (not drive:-) to get drugs and hospital care.
We live in such economic times with low income owing to stagnant wages (adjusted for inflation), inflation and expensive health care and what does the younger generation do in response to this? It does the math and picks Uber over the Ambulance because it's the economically practical thing to do to avoid being thrown out on the street. They also decide it's worth the additional risk to their lives from an economic perspective. At what point does America itself not recognize that we have serious social problems that we desperately need leadership for? Sadly, true leadership is nowhere to be found and in fact there has been little or no leadership for about 18 years now on growing problems. Sad sad sad. I just finished watching a series of videos by Edelman on the trust barometer data that they've been collecting for 18 years and yes ladies and gentleman, this year, 2018, we hit the lowest point since they started collecting the data. They have a lot of great ideas about how to address the problem and it all takes this basic form: Leadership needs to step up to the plate.
I seriously don't know why no one will acknowledge these problems. The data is very clear.
We'll make great pets
I am in the USA.
Had a relative that needed to get to the hospital an hour away (where the specialists were).
Local hospital wanted to put him on an ambulance to take him there, probably would have been a $5-$10K ambulance ride. Situation was urgent, but not emergent. Next day, we hired an Uber for $60 to get him there, and a week later (after surgery) $40 to get him home. Pretty sad when that's the state of affairs, but (I hate this saying but I'll use it anyway) "it is what it is.".
The nurse at the local hospital was not amused when I asked her if we'd been magically transported to Canada when I asked about the cost of the ambulance ride.
Driving people around is a shitty job; especially the sorts you will get at bottom dollar. I guess it's their choice to work for Uber in that case.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
What makes Uber any different than taxi services that have been around for decades? Are Millennials that unaware of the world around them?
I'm pretty sure it's not using Uber that's the problem, it's the $1000 ambulance ride. Don't blame the ill-gotten solution, point that finger at the problem.
EOM
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
Some people are in bad shape and need medical attention or at least monitoring during their ride to the hospital. They clearly shouldn't be using Uber.
But others are stable and just need a ride. They clearly shouldn't be tying up an ambulance that someone else actually needs. In fact, Phoenix has a program where the fire department calls (and pays for) a cab for people like this who call 911.
So a bright-line rule for Uber drivers not to take people to hospitals would be bad. And as noted in the article but cropped from the summary, people take taxis to the hospital all the time. Both taxi and Uber drivers need to (gasp) use their judgment to decide whether to take a given passenger on a given ride. This sort of situation doesn't seem any different.
Honest question... When you take an Uber, don't you think about who has pissed/barfed/bled on the seat you're sitting on and wonder how deeply it has been cleaned? I would.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Greatest country in the world, Americans call it as they're passing out in Uber carpools on the way to the emergency room. Hahaha. Developed country, my ass.
Typical... Can't afford insurance, due to the government meddling in health care, cutting down competition. Now, everyone is locked to an MHO/PPO type plan instead of being able to SHOP around for the best price/doctors. Also, this person, probably a younger person, thinks they probably don't need health insurance because they are "young". Next thing will probably happen, is taxi services, auto insurance carriers will probably "demand" that uber/lyft drivers take some sort of EMT/first aid course before being allowed to operate, increasing their costs, and exposing them to potential lawsuits because people would rather save a couple thousand dollars, and not call an ambulance.
Is the incidence of use "ride sharing" (Uber/Lyft/etc) over medical transport higher than say a cab?
If not, this is a non-issue.
At least in Canada there is a good chance your driver is a doctor from the Caribbean or Eastern Europe. Our Ambulance service is pretty good here in Canada but you would be shocked at how many Uber drivers are doctors from poorer countries.
I have only had to call an ambulance once in my life. The one time was for my stepdaughter who passed out and hit her head. By the time they got there, she was up and on her feet. She said she felt ok now, but they took her to the hospital anyway. The hospital is about 1/2 mile away from my apartment. The doctors said that she just got up too quick and whited out. Nothing to be concerned with and the bump on her head was not a concussion. About a month later, I got the bill. My out of pocket expense was $800 for a 2 minute ride. That was not even the the hospital bill! That was just for the ride in the ambulance! It was the first time I called an ambulance. I will never call again unless it is absolutely necessary! No wonder people call Uber!
Here in Finland the Social Insurance Institution actually will pay for your cab ride to a hospital for the part that exceeds 25 euros. That is, if you take a cab and the cost is 300 because of a long trip, you will pay 25 euros, the rest is covered by the state. Same goes for ambulances, the patient has to pay 25 euros for the ride to a hospital/nearest point of treatment. After that, once the patient is admitted to care, if he/she needs to be moved to another hospital for exams or treatment at a better equiped facilit, it is covered for by the single payer medical system, ie. the patient doesn't pay a dime for it.
I work for the Hospital district of Helsinki and Uusimaa and as the largest district in the country we're in charge of all the highly specialized care in Finland, for example all of the really complex surgeries are handled here. Because we're one of the larger countries in Europe, this means we routinely get patients from up north in Lapland traveling distances of close to 1000 kilometers to reach urgent treatment here. In situations of extreme urgency, helicopters are used, this is usually done for example in cases where the patient has an entire limb detached due to an accident and needs to be operated within hours for recovery to be viable. Donated organs are also routinely flown in with copters,
Obviously this isn't cheap, as transfering patients over long distances costs both in time of treatment staff as well as equipment an fuel costs. All that being said, our total medical expenditure for the public system is around 4040 dollars per capita, which is about 40,8 % of the 9890 dollars per capita spent in the States, according to the OECD..
In fact, as I've said before and I'll say again: every single universal model in existence is cheaper than the current US model, which is why every other OECD member has adopted some variation of a universal model, not all of which are single payer.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
I just love the millennials who are too healthy and too cheap to purchase insurance.
Yeah, but hey, having a mandatory basic medical insurance as a matter of national policy would be communist, right?... /sarcasm
The guy in west texas was forced to spend 30 grand because the hospital would not allow his son to transport him.
http://www.wfaa.com/article/ne...
Granted he was pretty dumb trying to snap a photo of a rattlesnake.
The air ambulance thing from what I hear is basically extortion.
Instead of 911, Uber can be 912, 913, or 914.
912 ER after a drive thru the Taco Bell.
913 ER after a Burger King pickup/drive thru
etc.
No competition with ambulances, nosirreebob
Can anyone explain, preferably by basic financial calculus, why and how an ambulance ride should cost $1000 or $3000?
The amount of money they make by this should be excessive.
Even if you count in all the equipment in the cars and the training the paramedics get.
The hospital won't come after you for that $100k. Not with any real force. Ambulance companies are billed out of a completely different bucket and they _will_ get their money. Ambulance companies have notoriously bad debt collection practices that most poor people are well aware of.
Furthermore, you can't file bankruptcy anymore. Not for real. All you can do is restructure your debt and pay it. It's one of the major legacies of the Bush Jr administration. They gutted the laws. If the judge likes you, you can pay slowly, but you'll still pay. If the judge doesn't like you your just boned. They'll order wage garnishment on behalf of private companies for amounts they see fit. If you're in the south you might end up in a debtors prison via contempt or court charges. The judge orders you to pay, you can't pay, they lock you up for contempt.
There's been a major shift in how debt works in this country that nobody really talks about. Considering our media is largely owned by billionaires that's not surprising. Regardless, what used to be unsecured debt is now secured against all future earnings and any property you might own when you die.
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That's interesting. Canada is obviously also very geographically dispersed; some people come in to the hospital by plane or helicopter. There is still a small, highly subsidized charge for the travel because otherwise people would be making frivilous calls and consume resources. In such a free completely covered system, how do you prevent someone from faking a more serious condition in order to get a free ride?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The only reason why I can think that this isn't an issue with cabs is that most cab drivers look like they are much more likely to cause a serious accident than help out with one.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
The first time a sick/injured person who does this dies or isn't treated in a timely manner sues Uber because an Uber driver didn't rush them to the hospital despite knowing they needed to visit the ER, Uber will institute a policy prohibiting drivers from asking passengers if they are sick/injured and need the ER.
That in turn will bite people who were fine when they got into the Uber car, but collapse / have a heart attack / have a stroke during the ride. The driver will then be prohibited from asking if they need assistance and will probably be required to assume they've just fallen asleep.
Here in Canada, ambulance fees varies by province, but they are subsided to a low rate - in Ontario it's $45, and in BC $40, for example. While it's true that we are ultimately paying the true cost of the service through taxes, ultimately it saves society as a whole money, precisely because people are a lot less reluctant to call an ambulance. With a subsidized ambulance service, people are more likely to call emergency services at the first sign of a medical issue, when the patient may be stabilized, and the cost to treat the patient is lower, instead of waiting for the situation to worsen to a point where costly critical intervention is needed.
One of the main reasons we subsidize ambulance costs in Canada is because it saves money in the medical system in the long term.
By ER you mean adult book store. And by injury, you mean penis pump.
This is not rocket science. Charge people $900 for an ambulance call, and they'll start calling Uber instead. When I was researching my book on the rideshare industry I took four or five people to the hospital, including one who was really in bad shape. He was a former EMT, so he clearly understood the risks.
My dad had Medicare and it the last ambulance call still cost him $200 out of pocket. Even the copay was more expensive than Uber.
Charging for an ambulance is just wrong.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
While it might put Uber drivers at risk legally (which they more than likely would see Good Samaritan protections) a study showed that people who found their own ride to the hospital when shot or stabbed were 62% less likely to die on the way to the hospital. So Uber and lift actually make _better_ ambulances.
You believe a cab driver when he tells you that he's actually a doctor (or engineer, or whatever)?
Man, are you gullible.
I have known a number of doctors and engineers (have helped the engineers get accreditation in Canada) and, while the process can be difficult and a bit scary, if they're legitimate professionals, they will go through the process.
Amazingly enough, there are a ton of cardiologists driving cabs in Toronto that find the process of getting accredited too difficult which is a good thing if they can't navigate the Ontario Medical Association, I don't think they should be anywhere near a heart.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
More like $15-$25 vs $500-$1000+ more then a few bucks.
So, in other words a ripe market for disruption by a new technology firm? I'm not joking...
Military service is the best investment I ever made. My fellow Americans are paying for my health care.
For the trip to be covered the hospital needs to confirm that the trip was required. That is, someone can take a cab or an ambulance to a hospital with the cost being 25, but unless the hospital agrees that the trip was required, the trip is not covered and will be charged from said person in its entirety.
This is enough to keep abuses minimal to my knowledge, meaning I'm at least not aware that people misusing the system would be a major issue cost-wise, even though I'm unable to provide you with exact figures as to the amount of these cases.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
There is still a small, highly subsidized charge for the travel because otherwise people would be making frivilous calls and consume resources.
This varies by Province. Please don't make claims like "In Canada" when you actually mean "In the Canadian Province of [Ontario|Quebec|etc]"
Here in Saskatchewan we have no such subsidization, not even for hospital-to-hospital transfers.
Source: 5 year old son transferred from one hospital to another and got stuck with the bill. My only recourse was to write a letter to my MLA and nothing came of it.
I would have asked my next door neighbor. I've given them rides there before.
Most times an Ambulance isn't required. I don't see a problem here. If they choose an Uber over an ambulance, that's their chose.
Yeah. You self-diagnose and your results depend on how accurate your self-diagnosis is.
Guess wrong, you die. That's your choice. "I don't see a problem here" either, assuming "sometimes you guess wrong and die" is not considered a "problem".
According to wikipedia, Saskatchewan charges "Depending on the health region, $245 or $325 + $2.30/km". You think that is the full price you're paying??
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
It's almost like our health care system is broken or something
Until the US gets its head out of its ass, this will continue to happen. Heaven forbid we look at every other Western country on Earth to solve this type of "problem."
They had to vote on the ACA bill first before they could find out what was in it.
Yes... the Democrats passed the ACA after 79 hearings, and about two months of discussion, including multiple amendments from Republicans: https://mic.com/articles/17630...
I was paying attention to the Republican complaint at how "quickly" ACA was passed right up until I saw how they decided to do in the "repeal and replace" bill, which was NO hearings, a bill written in secret, and an attempt to pass the bill before the budget office even stated what the cost would be.
Not to mention provisions being added to the bill handwritten in the margins overnight before voting... which no senators or representatives actually admitted to adding https://www.vox.com/policy-and....
The Republicans did everything that they accused the Democrats of doing, but even more so.
I don't know why this is a story. There's absolutely nothing different here from the exact same incident on a city bus, or in a taxi, or when carpooling with your buddy next door (which is what Uber pretends they want to be). And you'd be incredibly naive to think that those versions of this same incident don't happen every single day.
From the driver's standpoint it's actually very simple too. Do you feel comfortable transporting this person to the destination they're paying to go to?
- Yes: Treat them as you treat every other paying passenger and take them to the destination and get paid.
- No: Refuse transport, as you would any other person you don't feel comfortable transporting, call 911 and request an ambulance.
If the patient refuses the ambulance when it gets there, that's not your problem, that's between the paramedics and the patient.
On slashdot we frequently repeat that "on a computer" or "on the internet" do not make an invention new and novel. Well "in an Uber" is the same thing for the transportation industry. "in an Uber" isn't new and novel. It's the same thing as everyone else has been doing since the first person carried another person to the tribe's medicine man. This is no different than a taxi or a city bus which run in to the same issue every single day.
You can thank the American Medical Association for high medical costs, from running Ricardian rents for their physicians to lobbying against common sense, if there is profit to be made off pain and suffering, they are open for business. As a medic for last 10 years I've seen the worst in people, and they are the worst scumbags on this planet.
Calling Uber in this kind of situation puts the driver and other passengers at risk of having to help you or something. Instead, if you're passing out or having a heart attack or something like that, you should drive yourself to the hospital.
Thank you for using the right terminology. Many people are fooled (fools?) into calling it ride-sharing.
In europe you call the ambulance if you have a medical issue.
They take care of you and transport you to the hospital.
You don't have to pay them directly, the cost is distributed among all tax paying citizen.
Your life is not in ruins because you had a medical emergency, you hopefully get better and move on.
It is as easy as that.
My daughter was given an ambulance ride from one doctor to another. Low oxygen count, but clearly stable. The problem is the doctor doesn't ask; they prescribe the ambulance ride; if we had decided to take our daughter to the hospital in our car we would most likely get a Child Protective Services case started.
The ambulance rides was on the order of $5000; our actually-decent-and-freakishly expensive insurance didn't cover it because we hadn't met our deductible yet.
So.... we had to pay roughly $4800 for a 15 minute ride ... which was ~10% of my yearly income.
We would have been more than happy to drive her. If we didn't have a car it would a taxi/Uber/Lyft.
------------
On a side note - for people with disabilities who can't drive (vision, motor, etc.) .... who might also not have the ability to pay a $4800 bill.... Uber is the only option that makes sense.
Put any loser who can probably drive legally into ambulances and you'd cut costs!
Why does it take TWO people? Half the waste is the typically 2 people just to bring 1 person to the hospital!
Then you can save all that weight/space/fuel because nobody will be performing any medical aid at pickup or during the ride so why have a mini ER in a big heavy truck?
You can afford to wait before bleeding out! Just keep pressure on the wound with your cell phone! Your Uberlance will be right with you after completing their popular routes to the airport to drive way over to your low volume neighborhood.
Unconscious? Well you should have pre-tipped or pre-payed because how are they going to get a good rating from you now?
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Both taxi and Uber drivers need to (gasp) use their judgment
next you will tell us that water must flow uphill and that time must move backwards, humans are not possessed of judgement
it was a Republican program invented by the right wing "Heritage Foundation" (which is less a think tank and more a mouthpiece of the party meant to give it a veneer of psuedo-scientific legitimacy). The ACA was RomneyCare before it was Obamacare.
The scheme is to force everyone to buy private insurance in order to lower costs by increasing the pool. It doesn't work because once the profit motive is in play costs continue to rise. It _did_ slow the growth of costs, but it did nothing to remove the incentive for insurance companies to deny care or fix the problems of folks not paying their medical bills or skipping the doctor due to high copays and eventually using much, much more care for much worse conditions.
The ACA was the best bill we could get with a Congress full of Republicans and right wing ("Blue Dog") Democrats. The country needs to move left if we want to solve these problems. Funny thing is voters know that, which is why they elected Trump (who, if you just listened to his rhetoric and gave the jingoism a pass ran a left wing populist campaign). Sadly Trump, like the ACA, isn't really going to solve any problems; heck, so far he seems to be making things worse. We get the jingoism without the populism...
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So, dumb-ass, how does your country stack up? Or are you some lazy millennial from California that would rather live in some other country?
Trump should offer all those US citizens who hate the US a free government subsidized train/bus ride to the EU.
That's one tax expenditure I'd highly approve of.
and honestly for most debts they do. What companies have taken to doing is buying up a lot of debt from the same consumer to make it worthwhile to sue. It works because the courts and legal system now do the collection for them (once the initial paper work has been filed). Of course if the amount is high enough they won't sell the debt, they'll do it themselves. From what I can tell the threshold's around $3k-$5k, but I've been out of debt for a while (knock on wood) so it's hard to tell.
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and you don't have any medical emergencies. Or any kind of emergency whatsoever. And you don't have kids in college. Or you're OK with not giving them much support. Or you've won the genetic lottery and they got a full ride on a sports or academic scholarship. Or your job doesn't get shipped overseas when you're over 40. Or...
I could keep going on, but the fact is with wages being in decline for 40 years it's bloody _hard_ to stay out of debt.
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Before ObamaCare ambulance ride was $200 with insurance.
After ObamaCare ambulance ride is $1000 with insurance.
Thanks Obama.
That is why I voted for TRUMP!!!!
TRUMP 2020!!!
Because in the US we put up with a lot of bullshit because empathy and diverse populations.
If you talk with any ER nurses, you will be aware of the rampant abuse put on the system by repeat users that say key words such as "chest pain (full battery of tests required before discharge)", suicidal thoughts (psych eval required, taking hours or days sometimes (weekends) to get someone to evaluate them, etc. The whole time mandatorily required to have nearly full-time staff involvement and logging (for lawsuits on restraints and whatnot), required meals, showers, and a free place for a couple of days. And the ER staff has to do this stuff because lawsuits, etc.
Want cheaper health care ? Stop letting people abuse our own systems. I know, it will take some assholeishness for a little while, but it will be better for most of us. Or just move to a homogenized country where *most* people can be trusted to not abuse the system.
If I were an Uber (or similar) driver. I would just sit at the spot where the ill passenger entered, and call an ambulance for him. That means I've done the one thing a citizen is reasonably required to do given an illness situation I've come across, and takes the legal liability out of the issue for me.
If every driver did the same, then the "problem" of people calling drivers instead of ambulances would end rather quickly.
As for the cost of ambulance care, I don't see it as a problem. If you have insurance, that pays for it. If you don't have insurance but do have a reasonable income, you pay it yourself. And if you don't have the means to pay it, anything serious enough to require emergency room attendance is serious enough that the cost (or probably more likely, the harassment by bill collectors) is irrelevant, versus your health. The point being the ambulance isn't going to deny you service based on ability to pay.
Where I live (Commie Medicine Canada) the cost of ambulance care is capped at about $US 280 (helicopter, air) or $US 261 + $US 1.15/mile (ground). It's possible to incur both an air and a ground ambulance charge.
here's one right now. The bill that landed the guy in jail was for an ambulance too.
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We need Medicare-for-all (single-payer) now. This article, "Medicare-For-All Requires No Increase in Taxes," is still true. Of course, it could change depending on how much Republicans gut social programs. The savings and benefits from Medicare-for-all would be great for individuals and the nation.
Another authoritarian who thinks agency is a problem to be solved.
It's about the same in Norway. An acquintance of mine had a work accident damaging his eye. He had to go to a medical center 4 hour drive away, which was done over the night in two taxis (meeting in the middle and swapping him over, so the taxi drivers didn't stray too far outside their normal service areas). He paid nothing, of course. His vision recovered. I guess if his condition were more urgent, he'd get a helicopter.
The whole US medical insurance system is a wrenched loss-loss thing.
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
So much is debated on the cost of an ambulance. I agree wholeheartedly (i'd use a ride-share over an ambulance any day) but that's not the point.
Uber should be held liable for part of this.
- At the very least, they know that someone is heading to a hospital. They could require all hospital visits to be express, not pool, so you don't share a ride with another person if you are sick.
- They can also conduct a quick survey - IE: "ER vs Intensive Care vs Doctor vs employee" to give the driver some indication on the level of emergency.
- Bonus points - They could even give warning to the hospital that a rider is coming their way, along with an estimated ETA.
There is a place in-between. It is not authoritarian to say "getting advice from someone with a clue should be easier than making stupid decisions on your own especially when your not in a state to make decisions".
Not expecting untrained people in a bad enough shape to need an emergency room to make life-or-death decisions is kind of common sense...
Suffered a fall, was put in a city-owned ambulance and given a ride to the hospital (approx 5 miles) with NO medical treatment along the way other than collection of vitals and being strapped to a board with a neck brace.
The bill? Over $12,000
Somebody I know who is in the system and who I trust told me it is because the service is covering the costs of all the homeless, including the very high illelgal alien population, the mentally ill (who use the service like a txi), and the druggies, all of whom are unable to pay their bills and many of whom get ambulance rides which are not truly necessary.
My injuries were severe enough I could not have driven myself and I was not with anybody I knew who could drive me. If I'd been in less pain and able to use my hand with a phone, an uber would have been one hell of a lot cheaper and no risk to the driver.
People should look at the old films of the Kennedy assasination for the footage of the ambulance used for Lee Harvey Oswald (as a reference for 1960's ambulances). As a nation, we found something little better than a station wagon with room for a stretcher but not even any medical person onboard as perfectly acceptable back then. While a person having a heart attack or a person with a horrific bleeding wound needs a wagon with a full set of equipment and drugs and a couple medics aboard, most people going to a hospital ER do not and end up paying insanely inflated prices for a glorified taxi service.
Perhaps what's needed is a "medical uber" where the person using the service agrees the driver is not liable for not being medical, and the driver is aware he will be hauling a patient, and there are checkboxes on the app for things like sick vs injured, a level of urgency, etc so both parties involved have eyes open. With enough freedom and enough of the entreprenurial spirit, anything can be solved and optimized.
If I order an Uber I am almost guaranteed it will arrive in 5 minutes. Calling emergency services in my country is a joke. By the time the ambulance actually arrives I am in all probability already dead.
guessing wrong leading to death is not a solvable problem unless you can eliminate the guessing. Pushing the guessing off somewhere else is easy. Eliminating it pretty much requires psychic powers.
Yes, it puts the driver in danger for over regulated and litigious places like the USA. That the anecdote was mentioned in Boston is probably not a coincidence. By the way, it is quite possible that an Uber driver would be more educated than a cab driver. Oy.