Although it’s often presumed that emergency room visits are for people without health care coverage, a new poll of emergency physicians shows that’s not the case. According to a new survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians, 97 percent of ER physicians reported treating patients on a daily basis who were referred to them by primary care doctors.

That same percentage said they treated patients “daily” who have Medicaid, the federal-state health plan for the low-income, but who can’t find a doctor who will accept their insurance. If the new health care reform legislation provides insurance coverage that reimburses doctors at Medicaid rates, this could exacerbate a lack of access to medical care.

“Many of my patients do what they are supposed to do — they call their primary care doctor when they have problems,” says Darria Long Gillespie, a resident physician at Yale Department of Emergency Medicine. But primary care doctors often worry they don’t have the time or resources to treat them and instead send them to the ER, she says.