MedStar: Don't Call 9-1-1 for Mosquito Bites

[News]

The EMS company says its received a number of calls regarding mosquito bites.

View the full article

[BillKaneEMT]

Yah, well google mosquito bites in texas and see what you get. The various news agencies are trying to play this out like it's The Bubonic Plague II: Back to the Pandemic! Every time I turn on the news it seems to be another West Nile story. We get it, West Nile Virus is bad, mosquitos spread it. Understood. I've been bitten by, roughly, 25000 mosquitos this year. No West Nile. This isn't like a zombie outbreak where one bite = instant death, but you'd never know it if you spend much time watching the news. Oh well, assuming the world doesn't end this winter I'm sure we'll look back on this like the last generation looks back at the Swine Flu terror of the 70s. I wonder why that dispatcher sent an ALS rig 45 minutes out for a mosquito bite? Possibly it was the only available rig and they have a guaranteed response policy or something. Maybe they don't use bls rigs there. Oh well, peopl eare nuts and life is wacky.

[Chief1C]

Call! Provided you can personally pay the full bill including base rate and loaded miles... If not, do what everyone else does and suck it up. B/c you know damn well that no insurance company, medicaid or medicare plan will pay up when they read a PCR for someone bit by a mosquito ten minutes ago.

[ERDoc]

Just another example of why EMS providers should be allowed to refuse transport after they are brought up in education to an appropriate level.

[Bieber]

ERDoc, I completely agree. Perhaps going off onto a different tangent than what this thread is meant for, but what would you consider an appropriate educational level in order for paramedics to safely refuse transport to those patients for whom transport is not necessary?

[Just Plain Ruff]

I think that just being pushed out of the womb should be the level of education to allow us to refuse transport for some freakin idiot who calls us for a mosquito bite. For other stuff, that's a different story.

[ERDoc]

Good point Ruff. As for your question, Beiber, medics should be at minimum a bachelors degree similar to that of a PA.

[paramedicmike]

Similar to that of a PA as in PAs who were trained to a BS level? Or the current model of PAs being trained to the MS level?

[ERDoc]

Either one would fine fine, provided there was enough clincal experience.