This Idea Has Kept Tens Of Thousands Out Of Emergency Rooms And Saved One State Millions Of Dollars

This piece comes to us courtesy of Stateline. Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.

If your infant has a high fever or you’re experiencing an unusual pain in your abdomen and you live in New Mexico, you may want to call the NurseAdvice line before you do anything else.

New Mexico is the only state with a 24/7 registered nurse call center that is free to all residents, whether insured or not. In operation since 2006, it has kept tens of thousands of New Mexicans out of emergency rooms and saved the state more than $68 million in health care expenses.

It has provided a basic form of health care to thousands of uninsured people who have no other access to care. It also has relieved demand on doctors and hospitals in a sparsely populated state where all but a few counties have a severe shortage of health care providers.

On top of that, the statewide call center has generated real-time public health data that has served as an early warning system during epidemics and natural disasters. In April, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will recommend New Mexico’s advice line as a national model that other states adopt during an emergency preparedness summit in Atlanta.

New Mexico’s success at launching its first-in-the-nation, public-private advice line was due in large part to a profound need for greater access to health care. With too few doctors and too little insurance coverage, it was obvious to everyone that something had to be done, Feldman said.

In 2006, New Mexico’s then-Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson tried and failed to enact a major health care reform law aimed at expanding insurance coverage. “While that was going on,” Feldman said, “we snuck this one through. It was low-tech and straightforward. It would make a difference on the ground.”

Dr. Bart Schmitt, a pioneer in the field of telephone triage, gives Richardson much of the credit for the NurseAdvice line. “Bill Richardson pulled together the stakeholders – big hospitals, the university and insurance companies – and he made it work in the second poorest state in the country,” he said.

Schmitt said every state should have a call center for the uninsured and the insured who have no medical home. “Otherwise, who do they call? They’re boxed in,” he said. “They can’t get advice from anybody.”

The Huffington Post