A Push to to Reduce Hospital ERs Wait Times

Anna Palmisano, 71, remembers feeling helpless in October of 2022 as she and her husband—who was then seriously ill with COVID-19—waited for five hours to be treated in an emergency room near their North Bethesda home.

But Palmisano, the founder of an advocacy coalition called Marylanders for Patient Rights, didn’t need that personal experience to know about the problems with the state’s hospital ERs.

Patients in Maryland hospitals spent a median time of 247 minutes in the ER before leaving, according to an analysis of federal data by Becker’s Hospital Review, a medical industry trade publication. That is the longest of any state in the U.S., although residents of the District of Columbia fared worse—with hospital patients there facing a median time of 330 minutes in the ER.

When the General Assembly convenes in Annapolis next month, AARP Maryland will be working with Palmisano’s group and others to address the issue.

“What we know is that the longer an older person has to wait in the emergency room, they’re more apt to either get sicker or die,” says Tammy Bresnahan, AARP Maryland senior associate director for advocacy.

In 2023, a state Senate committee asked key stakeholders, including the Maryland Hospital Association, to study the problem. The group’s report, issued in March 2024, outlined a bevy of potential policy changes, including expanding access to health care outside the hospital setting and bolstering mental health resources.

Bresnahan says AARP will press lawmakers to specifically address hospital staffing shortages as a primary cause for the long wait times.

Palmisano has heard reports of people waiting as long as 45 hours to be seen. In one case, a son waited six hours before giving up and taking his sick father to an ER in nearby Virginia, where the man was seen immediately and admitted to the hospital.

“This is a fixable problem,” says Palmisano, a retired microbiologist, “and I feel that, in Maryland, we just don’t have the will to fix it.”

The Maryland Hospital Association said in a statement to the Bulletin that its members are continuously working to improve patient flow and care. But the group says hospitals can’t control other contributing factors, such as inadequate behavioral health and primary care services.

Caregiver grants, drug costs

Other AARP priorities for the 2025 legislative session, which begins in January, include securing funding for a new caregiver grant program and reducing prescription drug costs. Bresnahan says AARP will urge Gov. Wes Moore (D) to seek a $5 million appropriation for the Caregiver Expense Grant Program, which was created in the 2024 session.

The program provides grants to cover up to 30 percent of qualifying caregiving expenses that exceed $2,000 a year. The maximum annual grant is $2,500. Applicants must earn less than $75,000 a year, or $150,000 for a couple filing jointly.

“This relief is really needed,” says Bresnahan, noting that caregivers often dip into their own savings to pay for home modifications, assistive devices and other needs. AARP research shows that in 2021, 760,000 Marylanders provided 710 million hours of unpaid care for loved ones.

Dorinda Adams, 66, an AARP Maryland volunteer who helps track legislation, says the bill creating the program was passed too late in the 2024 session to secure funding. She and other advocates met with the governor’s staff in the fall to raise the issue and will keep the pressure up.

“This work requires constant attention,” she says.

In an email, Carter Elliott IV, a spokesman for the governor, did not comment on the specific program but said Moore is committed to working with the state legislature “to invest in evidenced-backed policies that protect Maryland’s seniors.”

AARP also will urge legislators to address high prescription drug costs by expanding the authority of the Maryland Prescription Drug Affordability Board. The board can set upper payment limits for certain drugs purchased by a state or local government entity—for example, as part of a municipal employees’ health plan.

AARP wants the board to have the power to cap the costs of certain drugs for all Marylanders. Bresnahan says the idea was introduced last year but did not get a hearing.

Lawmakers need to see it revived “year after year so that they know this is something they should address,” she says.

Mary Dieter, a freelance journalist, spent two decades covering Indiana state policy and politics for The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky.

Also of interest

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• How Family Caregivers Can Navigate the Emergency Department With an Older Adult
  
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