EMTALA and ADA Claims After Being Forced From an Emergency Room

Attorney Answer

The two federal statutes you are relying on are narrower than they sound: EMTALA does not entitle you to the MRI you requested, and a private ADA lawsuit against a hospital can win an injunction but not money. Knowing that now lets you put your effort where it can actually accomplish something.

EMTALA, 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd, requires that when an individual comes to a hospital emergency department and a request is made for examination or treatment, the hospital provide an appropriate medical screening examination within the capability of its emergency department to determine whether an emergency medical condition exists. If the hospital determines that such a condition exists, it must then either provide the further examination and treatment required to stabilize the condition within the staff and facilities available, or arrange an appropriate transfer. The duty is to screen and, where warranted, to stabilize. It is not a right to a particular test. And because the stabilization duty is triggered by the hospital's determination that an emergency condition exists, a screening that never identified one is analyzed under the screening requirement rather than the stabilization requirement.

One obstacle you will not face: in Roberts v. Galen of Virginia, Inc., 525 U.S. 249 (1999), the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff suing under EMTALA's stabilization provision does not have to prove the hospital acted with an improper motive, reversing a lower court rule that had required it. That helps. But Roberts arose from the transfer of a patient who had been hospitalized for six weeks, not from an emergency department discharge, and it says nothing about whether a discharge was premature.

On the ADA, Title III, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12181–12189, applies here — § 12181(7)(F) expressly lists the professional office of a health care provider and a hospital as public accommodations — and it can require reasonable modifications in policies, practices, and procedures to accommodate a disability such as your diagnosed anxiety disorder. The catch is the remedy. A private plaintiff under Title III can obtain injunctive relief and attorney's fees. Compensatory damages are not available in a private Title III action; only the Department of Justice can pursue them. Since your emergency department visit is over, an injunction may be worth little to you personally, and you should weigh that before building the case around Title III.

What you can do

1. Request your complete hospital record for both visits in writing — physician and nursing notes, triage records, the security log, and the discharge paperwork. 2. Submit a written request to amend the record stating that you asked for an MRI with contrast and that it was denied. Ask the medical records department for its amendment process; a patient's written statement of disagreement is generally kept with the record even when the provider declines to change it. 3. File an EMTALA complaint with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and a hospital complaint with the Connecticut Department of Public Health. Both investigate at no cost to you and generate an independent record. 4. Request the police department's incident or dispatch record for the call to the emergency department, and file a written complaint about the refusal to take a report. 5. Put your records from the other hospital showing the C3-4 stenosis and neuropathy into one dated file alongside the emergency department records, so the sequence is visible at a glance. 6. Take the whole file to a Connecticut medical-malpractice lawyer promptly, and ask specifically which claims survive the applicable deadlines.

⏱ Time limits apply. EMTALA claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd carry their own filing deadline, and any Connecticut negligence or malpractice claim arising from the same visits runs on a separate and shorter-running clock. Which dates control depends on your specific facts, so have them reviewed rather than calculated from a general rule.