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Late in 2011, 2,300 individuals in Minnesota received a notice in the mail stating that their previously covered emergency medical needs would no longer be covered by state insurance outside of the context of an emergency room or an in-patient hospital. These medical needs that would no longer be covered included everything from home health care to chemotherapy and dialysis. Why?

As part of the budget compromise, hashed out in the early morning hours right before the Minnesota state government shutdown ended last year, legislators agreed to defund much of Minnesota's Emergency Medical Assistance program. This program historically provided medical insurance to non-citizens who faced a litany of medical emergencies, from cancer to kidney failure. Under this new initiative, individuals affected by this policy decision were told that they could only receive care in a hospital, with limited follow up care in certain circumstances. Care would be administered only once an emergency situation was reached. For instance, a hospital visit after a suicide attempt would be covered, but not preventative care to address issues of depression.

However, there may be some hope for those cut. In order to avoid a potential lawsuit, on March 27th the Department of Human Services issued a settlement to provide more care to individuals in certain situations. Under the settlement, individuals affected by this policy can now receive more follow up services after an emergency in certain circumstances. In order to qualify for more follow up care, the individual's emergency must have been treated in an emergency room or in-patient hospital, and a doctor or dentist must deem that they need ongoing services or medication to prevent another emergency from occurring. According to the Department of Human Services, services and medication would be covered if a doctor or dentist decided that denying services would create an emergency situation within 48 hours.

Providing more services after an emergency is a definite step in the right direction. However, given the tremendous cost of emergency room service and the stress to individuals, families, and society that emergency situations create, I would love to see Emergency Medical Assistance cover more preventative care to prevent emergencies from occurring in the first place. Furthermore, there are still some services that Emergency Medical Assistance will not cover, even in an emergency. One example of a service that falls into this category is organ transplants, which are never covered under Emergency Medical Assistance. Moving forward, in designing policy we should keep in mind the individuals who are most vulnerable of all, those under-covered by health insurance.

For more information see: here

For a full list of what is and isn't covered under Emergency Medical Assistance see the link below under article 6, sec 27:

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?id=9&doctype=Chapter&year=2011&type=1