NEWS FLASH

Washington State Emergency Physicians Sue To Block Limits To Emergency Room Visits For Medicaid Patients | Facing huge cuts in the state Medicaid program, a group of emergency physicians have filed suit to block “the state of Washington’s plans to limit Medicaid beneficiaries to three ‘non-emergency’ visits to emergency departments per year.” The physicians say the new restrictions would “harm patients by categorizing more than 700 diagnoses — including chest pain, abdominal pain, miscarriage and breathing problems — as ‘non-emergent.’” Earlier this year, the Washington state Supreme Court reversed a series of Medicaid cuts that adversely affected disabled children, arguing that the state made overly broad assumptions about the patients whose care it was limiting, rather than examining individual cases.