Idaho Impresses on List of States With Shortest Emergency Room Waits

While you can’t necessarily plan for a medical emergency, you can hope that when you’re in need of a visit to the Emergency Room that you’re near a location with a short wait time. 

Your day could be off to a fantastic start, but go south when your kid smashes their hand in the car door. Or you randomly get light headed and collapse during a run. Or you notice that something is very, very wrong with your vision many hours after your optometrist is closed. Or you dislocate your shoulder in the middle of your radio show and it won’t go back in. We may be projecting here, but all of these could result in a trip to the ER. 

READ MORE: Only 4 Idaho Hospitals Receive a Perfect 'A' Safety Grade 

With the exception of high medical bills, one of the biggest complaints patients have about visiting the emergency room is the wait time. There’s nothing worse than being in a lot of pain or feeling extremely ill while you sit in the waiting room…forever. But in cases that aren’t life threatening? That can be pretty common. 

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But if that ER you’re visiting is in the Gem State? We’ve got good news. AutoInsurance.com recently published a report on ER wait times in each state and Washington D.C. They do point out that while their list is called “the longest emergency wait times by state” the figures do include the length of the entire visit from arrival to treatment. It’s pretty fair to assume that the states with the highest times are a result of people spending what feels like eons in the waiting room. 

Nationwide, the average length of an ER visit is just over 2.5 hours which sounds miserable, but it’s downright unbearable in Washington D.C. They have the longest average ER visit at 5.5 hours. Maryland’s the next closest at four. 

Idaho performed surprisingly well when it came to the shortest emergency room wait times. The report explains that shorter wait times may be the result of population density or alternatives to urgent care facilities or walk-in primary care doctors. They also say that states with higher rates of uninsured residents may have quicker ER visits because people without insurance are avoiding treatment for fear that they’ll be crippled by medical bills.

According to the latest figures from the United States Census Bureau, the national average of uninsured Americans is 8.7%. That number jumps to 9.7%.

So how long can you expect your ER visit to last in Idaho? Check out the list of the Top 10 States with the fastest ER wait times.