What is the best way to discourage people from calling ambulances and using hospital outpatient services when they are not in need of urgent treatment?

How are they supposed to know their condition isn't "urgent"?

If you wake up in the morning with a sharp pain in your lower abdomen, it could be a kidney stone or a ruptured bowel, or some other serious thing. Or it could just be a harmless case of gas. lasting a few minutes.

Maybe tele-health services is the solution. However, Japan is normally the last country that adapts such radical approaches.

This is a major problem in the UK as getting an appointment to see a GP has become so difficult that people will gladly wait for six hours in A&E.

Charge them more than a taxi.

That’ll stop it.

The dispatcher or provider should explain that if it is determined that it wasn't an emergency, they will receive an itemized bill for services rendered. The word will spread accordingly and should deter others. It should also be broadcast on the news or in Ad Council messages.

If you charge people, those on low incomes will not go to hospital, regardless of how ill they may be, and people will die. Wealthy people will continue to treat private hospitals as spas when they have a headache.

You cannot adequately deliver medical services on Zoom. You have to examine people in person. In some cases, you may need to ensure they have rapid care. The UK's telephone triage is a poor alternative implemented for a failing health service, butchered by funding cuts, Brexit and strikes.

Ordinary people are not medical experts. If their problem turns out to be minor, they can be quickly reassured and can go home. That should not be a problem. Seeing the patient is sometimes a way of picking up other concerns that GPs and social services can be advised of, such as abuse.

If you have limited healthcare because your tight-fisted government won't fund it, kicks out half the staff, makes it impossible to hire staff or pays so little that everyone goes on strike (as in the UK), the problem is not your worried patients. It is your government. Change that instead.

What is the best way to discourage people from calling ambulances and using hospital outpatient services when they are not in need of urgent treatment?

Arrest them when they do.

First, put a well trained professional in charge of the first contact. Someone that can understand from the information of the caller if there is need or not of ambulances or outpatient services. There is no point in expecting the patients or their family members to make this decision.

Second, once the professional decides this is not an emergency they can inform the caller that if they insist on using emergency services the extra costs will not be covered by insurance (or some similar penalty) to discourage them.

First, put a well trained professional in charge of the first contact. Someone that can understand from the information of the caller if there is need or not of ambulances or outpatient services. There is no point in expecting the patients or their family members to make this decision.

Second, once the professional decides this is not an emergency they can inform the caller that if they insist on using emergency services the extra costs will not be covered by insurance (or some similar penalty) to discourage them.

This system is already in place in Japan.

You’d have to change the entire culture, which is impossible here. A slight sniffle? Join the full waiting rooms in clinics and hospitals all over the country.

This system is already in place in Japan

If that is the case, what penalties are included in the warnings given to patients that insist on using emergency services?

None? That means this system is not in place, you just made a baseless claim it is.

The insurance system highly incentivizes people to call an ambulance. If you need to see a doctor at a major hospital, such as in a day when local clinics are closed, calling an ambulance is the cheapest option. Any visit in an ambulance counts automatically as an emergency from a billing perspective. Any visit on your own automatically counts as a non-emergency, and a major hospital charges extra for not first having a referral. Insurance picks up the cost of the ambulance, with no hospital surcharge. No ambulance means an out-of-pocket surcharge. Of course people use ambulances.

It’s an absurd rule. You could get hit by a car in front of a hospital. If you stumble in under your own power, or even if bystanders carry you in, it’s a non-emergency and costs you more. Financially, you’re better off laying on the pavement bleeding for five or ten minutes waiting for an ambulance.

mikeylikesit

Any visit on your own automatically counts as a non-emergency, and a major hospital charges extra for not first having a referral. Insurance picks up the cost of the ambulance, with no hospital surcharge. No ambulance means an out-of-pocket surcharge. Of course people use ambulances.

It’s an absurd rule. You could get hit by a car in front of a hospital. If you stumble in under your own power, or even if bystanders carry you in, it’s a non-emergency and costs you more.

Not exactly true. You can go to the ER in an emergency, without having been taken by an ambulance. You just pay the standard deductible. No surcharge.