Patients should never be put in a position where they are expected to self-diagnose and determine whether an emergency condition exists before being seen by a medical professional.

Virginia Medicaid should not drastically reduce reimbursement to physicians for potentially serious symptoms. A patient in Virginia who is having chest pain needs a full cardiac workup. The physicians should not be penalized for finding that the patient has costochondritis rather than a heart attack! Likewise - a patient having belly pain might have appendicitis (or another emergency illness) and needs worked up for that. The doctor should not have their pay cut when, after doing the appropriate workup, they find that the patient's pain is not an emergency.

Physicians are already between a rock and a hard place with regard to pay. Between medical school debt, the high cost of malpractice insurance, and relatively low pay for emergency physicians to begin with, pay is minimal. Further reducing their pay is not beneficial to the medical system. It will only drive professionals out of an already stressed medical system.