Cities with Uber Have Lower Rates of Ambulance Usage

I injured myself and needed to go to the ER. The injury wasn&#x27;t life threatening, but I definitely needed to go to the hospital immediately.<p>I called an Uber.<p>I don&#x27;t have the time or expertise to do the months of legalese and calculus it would take me to understand my insurance policy, so I have no idea how much an ambulance ride would have cost me. $0? $400? $15000? None of those numbers would surprise me. As best I can tell, insurance companies throw a dart to decide whether you&#x27;re covered or not, and then the healthcare provider makes up some insane number if you aren&#x27;t.<p>The Uber got me to the hospital faster than an ambulance would have, for less than $10, and I knew it would cost less than $10.<p>The injury, though extremely gruesome and painful, only warranted an x-ray, some tylenol, and an ace bandage.<p>I&#x27;m insured. They sent me a bill for over $900. For taking a picture, and giving me tylenol and an ace bandage.<p>I view insurance as a tax my employers pay to the American healthcare system to be compliant. When I have my end-of-life event, whatever that is, I fully expect a choice between death, and living a little longer in bankruptcy. I&#x27;ll probably get treated outside the US or choose death.<p>The system works if your net worth is somewhere above $5 million. For everyone else it&#x27;s just the mechanism that sends everything you earned back to rich people right before you die.<p>Or maybe I&#x27;m wrong! I hope I&#x27;m wrong. The stack of papers is 4 inches high so I&#x27;ll never know, but I sure hope so.

If you don&#x27;t get bogged down in details of the service, I see this as generally net good. For many, ambulance rides are prohibitively expensive, and while I certainly wouldn&#x27;t be cost-conscious taking an ambulance in the event of a seizure or heart attack, for something like a broken arm, or non-life-threatening ailment, an Uber&#x2F;Lyft&#x2F;Cab is a good alternative to trying to drive myself.<p>Beyond that, I&#x27;d like to see statistics on whether people ride-sharing to emergency rooms &#x2F; urgent care facilities was freeing up ambulances or causing them to sit idle. I suspect it&#x27;s the former, which would mean ambulances could be more available for more people with more serious conditions, but I could be wrong.

Coming from a country where ambulance usage is free for citizens, it would be interesting to see the stats in Uber cities. The only reason not to call an ambulance here is if you feel it would be unethical (e.g. if you broke your arm and your partner could drive you).<p>EDIT: That is, I imagine you might be able to see whether Uber provides a better alternative than the local cabs. This still holds in US cities though, why is Uber specifically good? Why don&#x27;t people consider calling their local cab company, which will still be much cheaper than a $250 ride.

I’d be more interested to see the reduction in medicab or medivan usage.<p>My father had the misfortune of having a stroke, and transporting him via van is outrageous — you’re talking &gt;$250 for a 15 mile drive, in what amounts to a cargo van with zero service beyond driving.<p>It’s one of those weird markets where the pricing is driven by the Medicaid reimbursement, which is a price floor.

Here in the UK, there has been a major campaign to try and reduce the usage of ambulances and emergency departments. Many of our ambulances literally have &quot;this is not a taxi&quot; written on them.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.pinimg.com&#x2F;originals&#x2F;5c&#x2F;ff&#x2F;1e&#x2F;5cff1eac4bef3b52f76d3ca92b041bec.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.pinimg.com&#x2F;originals&#x2F;5c&#x2F;ff&#x2F;1e&#x2F;5cff1eac4bef3b52f76d...</a><p>Because it&#x27;s free to use, a lot of people call ambulances when they really don&#x27;t need them. Women in the early stages of an uncomplicated labour. Young people with minor injuries. Elderly people who want a repeat prescription. Discouraging these people from abusing the service without putting off people who are genuinely in need of an ambulance is a complex and delicate task.<p>The US healthcare system is clearly an unmitigated disaster, but our single-payer utopia has a different set of problems.

I&#x27;ve been wondering about this for a while but, is there a reason why Uber or an alternative cannot&#x2F;should not get into the Ambulance space, if it were able to get qualified staff.<p>I feel like Ambulances&#x2F;Hospitals charge way too much and using the app&#x2F;tech at a basic level to connect the ambulances with patients addresses may be a good start for everyone and also the increase in supply may reduce costs.

Healthcare in the US sounds nightmarish. I&#x27;m a UK citizen and broke my leg badly in France; ambulance etc. Whole thing was &lt;75 GBP. That was for the cost of crutches and medicine in France, X-ray+ER visit was free. Then after I got my train back to the UK I had complex reconstructive surgery for free on the NHS.

A relevant personal anecdote - I hit my head earlier this year and gave myself a concussion, but did not realize it at the time. The next day, I began experiencing severe headaches, sensitivity to noise, sensitivity to light, etc. and decided to go to a hospital. I called an Uber.<p>I&#x27;m not sure what I would have done without Uber. I guess I could call a cab, but I don&#x27;t know that I would have wanted my ride to the hospital to be 30 minutes late, to refuse to turn the music down, and to tell me the credit card reader is broken when I get to my destination and then insist on taking me to an ATM. So I might well have called an ambulance.

Well yeah. I had a kidney stone earlier this year. Pain so bad I couldn&#x27;t move or think. Went to the hospital in an ambulance and ended up paying nearly $3k for the ride. First round they thought it was muscle spasms, so when I inevitably had to go back again I got an uber. The only reason I wouldn&#x27;t take that option again is if I was bleeding &#x2F; puking &#x2F; doing something that would make a mess in the car.

Various insurance companies had contracts with the taxi company I drove for. Part of our usual fares were taking people to and from emergency rooms. If a person with Medicaid had a problem they&#x27;d call their insurance company, whose representative decided whether to send an ambulance or a taxi.<p>The hospitals also had contracts to send their patients home. One pre-obamacare passenger comes to mind: she didn&#x27;t have a problem that wasn&#x27;t related to being poor&#x2F;homeless&#x2F;childhood abuse, but the E.R. couldn&#x27;t address her actual problems, and gave her a prescription for &quot;something&quot;. She waved the prescription and said, &quot;I can&#x27;t afford these pills...&quot; The hospital sent her to her sister&#x27;s apartment. I called twice to check up. She was doing okay the first time. The second time the passenger&#x27;s sister said she was at the State&#x27;s psychiatric hospital.<p>A non-insurance passenger with a non-life-threatening injury asked to go to an emergency room. I suggested going to the full-service emergency room at the heart hospital. They got in &amp; out in a fraction of the time that people usually spent at the big hospitals.<p>I knew of that emergency room because the Fire Department had a contract with the taxi company too. They sent people who didn&#x27;t need an ambulance via taxi to the nearest emergency room. That guy was homeless, iirc.

I&#x27;m currently a student in the Bay Area. One of the first thing that my seniors told me here was if you are ever injured or in an accident do not call 911 unless its life threatening as the ambulance bill can bankrupt you. We do have insurance but the system is too complicated and the consequences are the too scary if we don&#x27;t get reimbursed.

I&#x27;m happy that in Lithuania (northern Europe) you can call ambulance even if you have fever and it&#x27;s free (paid by you with taxes). Of course it&#x27;s not perfect, medical personal don&#x27;t earn much, and yes, it could take longer than Uber (except might be rush hours when ambulances can skip the congestions).

I&#x27;ve personally found this to work great, the only exception being the moment of surprise and confusion when I asked the driver to pull around to the emergency entrance.

Medical stories from the US always sound like from third world countries to me...

Notably, in the US.<p>this speaks more to a failure of the healthcare system than it does to the success of ridesharing

Article should have &quot;in the US&quot; qualifier.

Good stat but there&#x27;s nothing about outcomes. Uber might save money for transportation but how does the lack of a proper ambulance effect outcomes?

&gt; Researchers often cite costly transportation as a significant barrier to receiving quality healthcare. A study by Samina T. Syed and Lisa K. Sharp, doctors at the Kalamazoo College, suggests that cost-efficient access to a vehicle is consistently associated with increased access to health care.<p>Uber is using venture capital to subsidize rides. Drivers are often providing the services by going underpaid and putting up their own capital without getting the appropriate rent.<p>This is not a sustainable model. If there is a real need that is currently not met it has to be provided through other means in the long run.

Never ever have I thought this would be a side effect of not having any proper health care. I&#x27;ve never had to take an ambulance, but it&#x27;s a second nature where I live in Europe to just call the equivalent of 911 and they&#x27;ll send out the best unit depending on the injury. It can be a plain ambulance or a faster car with doctors that definitely is very expensive if you weren&#x27;t covered.<p>What a shame.

Had a bad bicycle accident about five years ago. No taxi would stop for me as it probably looked like I&#x27;d been in a drunken brawl. Uber or Lyft would have been nice, as I could have probably texted the driver not to be alarmed but that I needed a lift to the ER (at that point I still had not gotten a smartphone). I ended up walking 2.5 miles to the nearest hospital.

They (uber&#x2F;lyft) work well for my dog emergencies too.

We can view this as either a positive for how Uber works or a negative for how taxi cabs work. If the pervasive means of transportation other than ambulances are unresponsive or expensive compared to ambulances, then obviously ambulances are the choice. One might also drive oneself, get a ride from a friend or family member, or hope that a city bus will be fast enough. An Uber ride could be faster than a ride from friend or family and safer than driving oneself.

Does nobody else wonder how an un-peer-reviewed paper from Kalamazoo College is being reported by a tech blogger from NPR?<p>Why would anyone take this seriously?

Good, former EMT and Paramedic for busy metropolitan city here. Your exorbitant costs are subsidizing the homeless, system abusers, and illegals who can&#x27;t be billed. 90% of the calls we were dispatched to were not acute emergencies. And 90% of those calls were people of the lower socioeconomic demographic systematically abusing medicaid.

&gt; Many potential emergency room patients are too sick to drive themselves to a hospital. But an ambulance can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars without insurance. This is where a popular ride-sharing app can step in, while also freeing up the ambulances for those who need them most.<p>The rich?

Cities with Taxis have lower rates of ambulance usage too.<p>In fact, any kind of public transportation will result in lower ambulance usage. Because when there are alternatives some %age of ambulance rides will be replaced by some %age of public transportation rides.

Would be nice to have a service like Uber where you have a virtual doctor&#x27;s visit by phone in the car on the way to the pharmacy or to the hospital if it turns out to be more serious.

How is Uber any different than taking a taxi to the hospital?

Can&#x27;t you pay directly for private insurance in the US?<p>I pay directly to the insurance company. It costs me about 145 usd&#x2F;month and includes health insurance (with urgent care), long term care insurance, life insurance (about 500k usd) and some more.<p>I could have done it through my employer, but when I leave for another place I&#x27;ll have to renegotiate the price with the insurance company, and also this option has less good of coverage IMO. It is cheaper by 70% tough.

Correlation != causation

I&#x27;m curious, this article spins the whole &quot;lower rates of ambulance usage&quot; as a positive thing, but is there enough evidence to say that?<p>From the article:<p>_______ With demand for ambulances decreased by available Uber drivers, emergency personnel have been able reach critical patients faster while also applying necessary treatment on the way to the hospital, according to a new economic study from the University of Kansas:<p>&quot;Given that even a reduction of a few minutes can drastically improve survival rates for serious conditions, this could be associated with a substantial welfare improvement.&quot;<p>The study investigated ambulance rates in 766 U.S. cities from 43 different states. Taking into account the timelines of when Uber entered each city, the researchers found that the app reduced per capita ambulance usage rates by around 7 percent. _______<p>Okay they claim the study says &quot;emergency personnel have been able reach critical patients faster&quot; but decreased usage does not necessarily equal faster response time. It would have been much more solid if they actually looked at the ambulance response time, not just how many are being used. (My skeptical side leads me to think this is because <i>that</i> data-set didn&#x27;t match their narrative.)<p>There is also the question of: Is this actually a good thing? Are those 7% less people using ambulances all not having serious health issues? Especially when something is wrong, you are often not a good judge of your own health.<p>How many people having chest pain thought it wasn&#x27;t too bad so they called an Uber instead of an ambulance and died on the way to the hospital? Might not have turned out that way if they just called an ambulance in the first place..<p>Need more data to decide if this is an Uber propaganda piece.

Here in the UK ambulances are paid for by the NHS, to which Uber steadfastly evades contributing to. Now that their drivers have been legally classified as employees, there’s a shed load of back NI they owe us.

It may be an overall improvement in efficiency, but it&#x27;s not going to help patients long term. Whoever pays for the ambulances is going to eventually reduce their funding because they&#x27;re being under used and revert them to the same state they were in before. If that wasn&#x27;t the case, then they would have already been paying for more ambulances before Uber came along.