It's hard to say the ER is overused because most of us are not medically qualified to decide what constitutes an emergency. A heart attack, an infected gallbla

It's hard to say the ER is overused because most of us are not medically qualified to decide what constitutes an emergency. A heart attack, an infected gallbladder, and heavy duty heartburn present similarly enough that the suffering patient can't be expected to walk himself down a diagnostic flowchart. But if we could get proper diagnostics and triage in before admissuions and a lot of other resource allocation, it might improve results. I could see adding the a bank of triage experts "in front" of the ER. The ambulance, of course, skips this phase, but if you come in conscious and able to walk in, they can perform some basic checks before admission, and turn away some patients as better served by urgent care. Maybe this costs some modest flat rate, billed sort of like a repairman who doesn't charge for the trip and diagnosis if you get actual repairs performed. I suppose then you get into a related matter-- once you're at the hospital, being told to go somewhere else means "get back in the car and travel to the strip mall urgent care elsewhere" which would lead to frustration and delay.