Discussion Board Assignment 3

Free Standing Emergency Department
Name
Institution

Historically, those seeking emergency services could only get such services within the physical location of the hospital offering such services. Today, with the introduction of Free Standing Emergency Department as the new model has completely changed the way emergency services are offered. It is essential to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the Free Standing Emergency Department in the following ways.
First, with the introduction of FSEDs, it has increased the availability of high-quality emergency care in the settings that are convenient and easily accessed. For example, most of the FSEDs are located within the community where a patient will only travel a short distance before getting there for services. FSEDs have as well reduced the congestion that used to be experienced in the hospital located Emergency Department. It is cost- effective and more efficient coming up with an FSED compared to constructing new hospitals to meet the healthcare voids (Tran, Reeve, Reed, Cloyd, Wadman, & Muelleman, 2012). Lastly, it is easy to reduce costs and structure FSEDs as they have entered into contact with private insurers which has also made it is possible to reimburse them.
On the other hand, FSEDs are perceived more expensive as compared to the urgent care. For example, lower acuity patients who only need to visit a physician at the primary care and get treatment at lower costs may seek treatment at FSED. It is possible that FSEDs will increase costs by charging facility fee a burden that will shift to insurers and the patients.

FSEDs do not provide emergency services for 24/7, thus raising the concern of their emergency services provision.
Off-campus emergency departments (OCEDs) are owned and run by hospitals and in most cases considered the departments in the hospital that offer outpatient services. Whereas independent free standing emergency centers (IFECs) are not owned and run by hospitals but offer the same services as OCEDs for profit purposes (Tran et al., 2012). The advantages they have is that they are not bound by the regulations of the federal emergency department nor comply with any rules. Patients seeking for emergency services at the FSEDs need to have an insurance cover with private insurers or Medicare which stand in to reimburse FSEDs for offering services. It is advantageous to the community of FSED because they insurers can stand for any of the extra cost of their treatment. However, members of the community would favor IFECs because they are not regulated by the federal government. Most FSEDS are located in Texas, Colorado, and Ohio because they are fast growing and the population demanding for emergency services increased (Schuur, Baker, Freshman, Wilson, & Cutler, 2017). Therefore, I would recommend to the CEO and Board of Directors to adopt an off-campus emergency department (OCEDs) to facilitate emergency services.

ReferencesSchuur, J. D., Baker, O., Freshman, J., Wilson, M., & Cutler, D. M. (2017). Where do freestanding emergency departments choose to locate? A national inventory and geographic analysis in three states. Annals of emergency medicine, 69(4), 383-392.Tran, T. P., Reeve, B., Reed, E., Cloyd, B., Wadman, M. C., & Muelleman, R. L. (2012). Patient expectation survey at a freestanding emergency department. Emergency Medicine, 2(6), 119-122.