These two ERs want to put an end to it:
After evaluating patients who come to the emergency room, nurse practitioners or physician’s assistants will inform those with nonurgent symptoms that they can seek treatment at a specific community health clinic.
Patients who insist on staying will have to pay a $150 deposit before being treated in the emergency room or an $80 deposit to be seen in urgent care centers at LBJ and Ben Taub.
These are comparable to private minor emergency centers that treat non-life-threatening trauma and illness.
(via a reader tip by Ain’t Chicken.)
