I’m too ugh to engage with this at length but just a word: If you don’t have insurance, go for it. If you have insurance: People standing on EMTALA are gener

I’m too ugh to engage with this at length but just a word: If you don’t have insurance, go for it. If you have insurance: People standing on EMTALA are generally another word for “we are never going to see a penny for this patient.” Your ED doc does not give a fuck. However, the hospital will be assigning you a nurse case manager ASAP, whose only job will be to scrutinize everything done for you, to ensure you don’t get a single iota of care beyond the bare minimum needed to meet EMTALA standards, with as prompt a discharge as humanly possible. This will save you money - at the expense of appropriate care you’d otherwise receive (care that doesn’t qualify as an “emergency”, which means EMTALA doesn’t touch it, but that we’d normally do very urgently in order to keep your tuchus alive.) This is the standard of care random homeless people get. People have every right to prioritize according to their resources, but if you’re not worried about ending up homeless, this isn’t the route I’d take.