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"Frequent Flyers"
No folks, I'm not talking about earning airline miles here lol. I mean the same people that call 911 over and over and over again. Just this morning the pager went off and I said to myself, "if i hear that address one more time, i'm gona choke somebody!" lol. Without giving too much imformation here... we have a guy that calls at least twice a week for abdominal px. We get on scene and this guy walks outside and lets himself into the back of the rig, of course once hes there, he never has any pain to complain about. Thats just one of many... I'm sure you all have your own "frequent flyers."
How does everyone deal with the frustration of showing up to these peoples houses over and over again for absolutly no reason at all
How does everyone deal with the frustration of showing up to these peoples houses over and over again for absolutly no reason at all
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Angela on
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Yes we all have those!!!! I just smile do my job and think about usually food or something that makes me happy we have to keep it a "G" discussion right??? HA, We all go through it, ours is a diabetic who drinks every Friday night (awww...it is friday night) calls saturday morning cuz his sugar is out of whack! But keep your head up and just smile maybe the person needs a little bit of attention or a friend to talk to.
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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Personally, these people are a real pain in the ass, especially those who you can write their Hx down before even getting on scene. This is another case of lawyers and lawsuits making our jobs more difficult, because we still have an obligation to treat and or transport, despite the fact we should not be. Oh well we just keep pushing on.
However, what we have done, especially if we have picked the pt up several times and for the same thing, we will tell the doctor at the hospital and we can have the person reported for 911 abuse. Typically the doctor will say something about 911 abuse and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Another thing is if the pt starts playing the new hospital game, they don't want to go to so and so hospital....usually you see this with drug seekers. Thing is we still have to take them where they want to go, however, we have established a good rapport with all the hospitals that we will again tell the doc what is going on and why they wanted to go there. Again typically the person doesn't get what they want.
Some people do have legitimate reasons for calling and some know how to play the game and it takes awhile to be able to make something official. However, in more extreme cases we have notified the police and requested them on scene. They have helped in cases where pt's, who needed to go, refused and they have also informed such frequent flyers about abusing 911. Point is there are still things to do and ways to report such pts, it just takes awhile though.
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Permalink Reply by blair4630 on
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I don't mind the frequent flyers that are legitimite. At my old service we had two diatbetics in town who probably we went to their houses each 10-20 times/yr. But when we went they were unresponsive or close to it. They were as compliant as they could be, they were just very brittle diabetics. They don't bother me, that's what we're here for. The ones you're talking about are a different story. The best I can say is bear through it, there's not much you can do, except report them like someone else said, but you still have to take the call. Howver, if you're volunteer, and they are truly in no need of EMS ever, just don't take the call. Anyway, I've noticed alot of the fakers use abdominal pain as their usual complaint because it has a million differential disagnoses and is very difficult to refute, even in the ED with multiple tests. Alot of times they need someone to talk to and are lonely, or have some other social problem. A good place to start with these people, if it hasn't been tried yet, is a visit to the crisis center or contact with a social services agent.
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Permalink Reply by EngineLadder on
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Give them Frequent Flyers miles every time they call take them to a hospital farther away from there starting point.
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Permalink Reply by Timothy D. Stone Jr on
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We have several...One has to do with about the end of the month meds run out and well you can guess the rest. And we have one that sezs....and did you know an IV of salen soultion will bring you out of one lol. We just deal with it...We still respond on it if we are board lol...na we go....and if it gets to bad we have a Cop go talk..theyll stop for a while and then theyll restart. We had on that she called all the time once to twice a day for a couple weeks...we are a volunteer dept so we stoped responding...well on day she called and said she fell down the stairs...had neck pain back pain ect...i pulled up checked her and well as you know it was a fake....when the medics pulled up I asked them to bring me a C collor and a back board...straped her in that and had her ride code one the HMC.....well she moved after all this lol
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Permalink Reply by PFC Harmon on
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We have several of them but the thing is one day it will be a real call so you have treat them the same, as bad as you hate to at 3 in the morning when it's pouring down rain.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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Have a good one for you....We keep getting calls for a "welfare check" on an elderly lady in our district....If her son (who lives in California, we are in New York) doesn't hear from her every week then he calls...Now get this....911 to report that he hasn't heard from her...and yep...we get dispatched for a "welfare check".......Paul
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Permalink Reply by Dustin J. Millis on
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LOL!!!! not a bad idea! The guy I mentioned above is around 350 lbs. It might do him some good to walk home from the hospital!
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With such an issue you should be able to bring this up to your chief and perhaps social services and have the son contacted about utilizing 911 this way. Family should have some other contact means in place first, be it a neighbor, family, etc.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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Fortunately we don't have too many of the type of frequent flyers as you describe. Ours tend to be repeat visits to people with chronic or perhaps terminal medical conditions. If I had such a "patient" as you describe I would be pretty pissed off too. I think there would be choice words spoken.
I assume you provide a free transport service, otherwise these people would not call you. If you started charging $15 a mile for the transport it might make them seek alternate means of travel.
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Permalink Reply by Fireyladd - Retired Chief Sharp on
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Our local ambulance established a minimum fee just for responding. However, folks that cant or dont pay anyhow dont seem to care. Since they are mostly social services junkies they just become more call volume. We have those addresses that we all know. Most though sooner or later cash in those frequent flier miles for a one way ticket.
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