The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 (EMTALA) was designed to ensure equal access to emergency treatment by hospitals and to stop the practice of "patient dumping." Patient dumping occurs when patients needing emergency care – typically uninsured, disabled, and minority individuals – are transferred, prematurely discharged, or are denied treatment altogether. Thirty years after EMTALA was passed, patient dumping is still occurring. And healthcare delivery has changed dramatically, with stunning advances in medical science and the advent of major, national movements toward evidence-based medicine care and systems-based quality improvement. Have these sweeping changes left EMTALA behind, so out of touch with current practice that it is now harming, rather than helping, equal access to emergency care? What impact will the Affordable Care Act have on EMTALA? What impact is EMTALA having on the push for community-based services, the growing use of telemedicine, medical repatriation and the number of the mentally disabled in prisons? This panel will address these questions and others while analyzing a forthcoming report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on EMTALA. The panel will also share teaching materials on covering EMTALA in doctrinal courses.
Section business meeting at conclusion.