wasting away in frequent flyerville

A small town hospital in my state decided to do something about the bane of every ER nurses life: frequent flyers. The ones that come up to the triage desk and you tell them to have a seat in the lobby, you don't need their name because it is etched in your brain.

Anyway, this hospital decided to hire a social worker whose job it became to identify these people and work with them to decrease their visits. She started with 24 people and reduced their visits from 294 to 178 in a years time. Saved almost 300,000 dollars. Many of the people had untreated mental illness or stress related problems, were unemployed or homeless. She hooked them up with psychiatrists or social workers, etc.

Why doesn't every ER do this? Sometimes I think that the hospital doesn't want them to stop coming. Medicaid money is better than no money I guess