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Q&A
Addressing homeless patients in emergency rooms
2:08:24
ยท
90 sec
Council Member Marmorato inquires about the address used for homeless patients in emergency rooms. Dr. Katz admits he doesn't know the specific answer for NYC Health + Hospitals but shares an anecdote about a mailing mistake in his previous job.
- Dr. Katz promises to find out the answer to the question
- The discussion highlights the challenges of recording addresses for homeless patients
- A humorous story about mailing errors demonstrates potential pitfalls in address management for homeless patients
Kristy Marmorato
2:08:24
One question, a little off topic is when an individual goes into the ER and they are homeless, what do you put down as their address?
Dr. Mitch Katz
2:08:37
Funny.
2:08:38
I know that in my other two counties, where we we would we would have a specific address.
2:08:43
I don't know the answer.
Kristy Marmorato
2:08:44
Do you put the, address at the hospital?
2:08:46
I'm just curious.
Dr. Mitch Katz
2:08:48
I honestly don't know.
2:08:49
Good question though.
2:08:50
I'll I'll have to find out.
2:08:51
A very good question.
2:08:52
I don't think so.
2:08:53
Although, as long as we're we're all together and friends, one of the the funniest mistakes I ever saw in my thirty years of running government hospital systems was in my previous job where they put when someone didn't have an address, they put our office And someone didn't realize that, sent out a mailing.
2:09:19
And we mailed something like 50,000 pieces of mail to ourselves.
2:09:24
Right?
2:09:25
At tremendous expense.
2:09:27
And you could sort of see how it happened.
2:09:29
Right?
2:09:29
They didn't have an address.
2:09:30
The computer required an address.
2:09:32
Right.
2:09:32
Put in an address.
Kristy Marmorato
2:09:33
I'm curious
Dr. Mitch Katz
2:09:34
about And then someone later said, oh, we should send out we need to send out an announcement that no one thought to remove the people whose address was The address of our own office.
2:09:46
So then at tremendous expense, we sent ourselves a lot of mail.
Kristy Marmorato
2:09:50
That's interesting.
Dr. Mitch Katz
2:09:51
But but to the best of my knowledge, that that hasn't happened here in New York
Carlina Rivera
2:09:54
City.
2:09:54
Good.