ABA Family Legal Guide

Health-Care Law

Patients' Rights

Emergency Care

What is an "appropriate medical examination" under EMTALA?

Courts around the country are struggling with this very issue. Unfortunately, there is no clear standard in the law as to what is an "appropriate medical examination." In general, the hospital must give you a medical screening within the hospital's capabilities, although this standard has yet to be tested in most courts.

Usually, the court will look at whether you received treatment that was somehow different from treatment received by other patients. For example, you walk into an emergency room with abdominal pains and no health insurance. After waiting four hours to see a doctor, you're given a five-minute examination, told it's probably the flu, and sent home.

To prove that you were not given an appropriate medical examination, you would have to show that other patients with abdominal pain—and health insurance—were given a more thorough examination. You do not have to prove that you were treated differently because of your race, sex, political beliefs, religion, or some other improper motive. It doesn't matter why the examination was inappropriate. It only matters that it was not appropriate.