Despite the federal law that bars emergency departments from refusing to treat patients with acute medical conditions, lax enforcement and monitoring allow patient dumping to continue, argue the authors of a case study in the August Health Affairs.

In a separate article in the journal, a group of emergency care experts argues that many hospitals have been slow to take action to address patient boarding. The practice occurs when an emergency physician has admitted a patient to the hospital but the patient remains in the ED because there is no inpatient bed available.

My latest. Read the whole shebang.