The most common complaint about a trip to the emergency room (ER) is usually that the wait time at the ER was far too long.

Some emergency departments (EDs) have jumped on the bandwagon of offering service guarantees: unless a patient receives care in a certain amount of time, it’s free.

While at first glance this can seem like a strategic business move and simple solution to the consumer’s problem, service guarantees can actually pose serious challenges to EDs that could end up hurting their reputation and credibility. Many emergency departments have found that they did get an increase in patients, but due to systemic challenges in serving those patients it was actually detrimental to the department as a whole. Read more to find out how. Continue Reading →