Penn v. Salina Reg’l Health Ctr., Inc. (Summary)

EMTALA

Penn v. Salina Reg’l Health Ctr., Inc., No. 11-1243-MLB (D. Kan. May 9, 2012)

In this EMTALA case, the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas granted a hospital’s motion to dismiss.  The court found that the patient had not “come to” the hospital, where the hospital refused to receive the patient when called by a physician from a clinic unaffiliated with it. The patient presented to the clinic and was diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction. The doctor called the hospital, but it refused to receive the patient due to a lack of available beds in the intensive care unit. The patient was taken to a hospital that was further away by an ambulance service unaffiliated with the hospital.  The patient coded during the ride, and ultimately died.

Under EMTALA, a hospital does not have an obligation toward a patient unless the patient has “come to” the hospital or the hospital refuses to accept an appropriate transfer of a patient requiring its specialized capabilities. The “come to” requirement can be satisfied if the individual has presented on hospital property or is in a ground or air ambulance owned and operated by the hospital. The district court declined to accept the decisions of other circuits which extended this requirement to situations in which a patient was en route to the hospital in an ambulance that was not owned by the hospital, finding that this construction was “diametrically opposed” to the regulatory definition.

The district court also rejected the argument that the hospital had refused a specialized capabilities transfer.  The court found that such a situation requires two hospitals, and here, it could not find that the clinic constituted a hospital, despite the fact that many patients report directly to the clinic for emergent care, in part because of the clinic’s association with another hospital.