Looking for emergency medical care within the US after a sexual assault can incur hefty hospital payments which will deter assault reporting and compound victims’ trauma, in keeping with a brand new examine revealed within the New England Journal of Medication.
On common, hospital emergency departments charged $3,551 for pressing medical care coded as brought on by sexual violence. Individuals who had been sexually assaulted whereas pregnant confronted even steeper payments, with a median of $4,553. Uninsured victims or those that selected to pay themselves had been served payments that averaged $3,673. Even these with personal insurance coverage confronted burdensome payments; the examine discovered that insured victims paid a median of 14 % of their payments out-of-pocket, which for the typical invoice would work out to almost $500.
“Emergency division prices could discourage the reporting of rape and looking for of medical look after each short-term and long-term sequelae of sexual assault,” the authors warning. “Incurring such prices could additional hurt survivors—even these with full insurance coverage protection—by serving to reveal a probably stigmatizing occasion to folks, companions, or employers. Furthermore, such payments could additional traumatize survivors by suggesting that they’re personally answerable for their assault.”
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