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Finding a Way through the Hospital Door: The Role of EMTALA in Public Health Emergencies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Sara Rosenbaum  and
Brian Kamoie
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Extract

This article examines the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) in a public health emergency context. Congress enacted EMTALA in 1986 to prohibit the practice of “patient clumping,” which involved hospitals’ refusal to undertake emergency screening and stabilization services for individual patients who sought emergency room care, typically because of insurance status, inability to pay, or other grounds unrelated to the patient’s need for the services or the hospital’s ability to provide them. But in fact EMTALA, whose conceptual roots can be found in the Hospital Survey and Construction Act of 1946 (Hill Burton) as well as an evolution in both the common law and state statutes related to hospital licensure, can be viewed as having a far broader purpose than protection of individuals, and indeed, one that is related to the protection of communities and the public health.

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Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , Winter 2003 , pp. 590 - 601
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2003

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