Assignment Task: After reading Chapter 5, Case 5.2 (pages 83-84) from the E-Book, Economics for Healthcare Managers, Fourth Edition by Lee, provide a response to each of the discussion questions for your initial posting:
Q1. Why do patients who are not critically ill go to emergency departments?
Q2. Why are prices so high in emergency departments?
Q3. Are production costs also high in emergency departments?
Q4. What is an example of a fixed cost in an emergency department? A variable cost?
Q5. If an emergency department's volumes fell, how would its costs change?
Q6. Should insurers try to reduce emergency department use?
Q7. How might insurers reduce emergency department use?