Dhaval Bhatt had been warned about hospital emergency rooms. “People always told me to avoid the ER in America unless you are really dying,” said Bhatt, an immigrant from India who got a Ph.D. in pharmacology in the U.S. and is now a research scientist at Washington University in St. Louis. But when Bhatt’s 2-year-old son burned his hand on the kitchen stove on a Wednesday morning in April, the family’s pediatrician directed them the next day to the local children’s hospital. Bhatt was traveling. So, his wife, Mansi Bhatt, took their son to the hospital and was sent to the emergency room. A nu…