News 8
MedStar program seeks to curb non-emergency calls 
10:18 AM CST on Monday, November 2, 2009
FORT WORTH - Last year, MedStar took 21 habitual 911 emergency callers to the hospital a total of more than 800 times.
With 127 calls in 2008, one patient's care came at a cost of nearly one million dollars.
Now, MedStar is making house calls in an attempt to cut back on the non-emergency services. The agency has put together a team of paramedics that will deal with habitual callers with the hopes of freeing up paramedics to deal with more life threatening emergencies and saving taxpayers money.
John Davis, 35, gets a visit from MedStar paramedic Curtis Young every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
"I'm diagnosed with a rare migraine headache,” Davis said. "It causes me to go paralyzed on the left side of my body."
Davis called 911 40 times last year and is considered a habitual caller.
"He has an anxiety disorder, as well," Young said. "And before his diagnosis, he would call 911 because he felt like he was having a stroke."
Davis knows the paramedics by name and vice versa.
“It's embarrassing," Davis said while talking about the number of calls he has made to the emergency line.
The MedStar program is called the Community Health Program. During weekly visits, paramedics check vital signs and make sure patients are taking their medications properly.
"What piqued my interest and what made me excited about it is that I was tired," Davis said. "I was literally tired of going to the emergency room."
There are seven patients actively enrolled. Their 911 calls have dropped 52 percent since the program started three months ago.
"When he calls the non-emergency number and I call him back, it doesn't take me long to evaluate whether this is his chronic condition or whether it is something that is abnormal for him," Young said of the calls he has received from Davis.
But, Davis said he knows his participation in the program is not just about him.
"When the ambulance is not having to be dispatched to me I can be saving somebody else's life," he said.
He said he now feels good that he is no longer someone else's headache.
Right now, Young is the only paramedic assigned to the program. But, eight other paramedics are working to complete specialty training and will graduate in December.
It's still too soon to tally the savings, but MedStar hopes they will be significant.
E-mail dmiles@wfaa.com
