Will establishing an EMS transport billing program in my community raise my insurance rates?

Absolutely not. First of all, the overwhelming majority of communities across the United States derive approximately 45% to 50% of EMS transport revenue from Medicare…a program that sets aside less than 2% of its total budget for ambulance transportation reimbursements. With such a high percentage of income resulting from Medicare reimbursements, the chance of EMS transports impacting private insurance premiums is immediately reduced.

As far as private health insurance premiums go, health insurance costs in the private sector will continue to escalate with or without your community choosing to bill for EMS transports. Cost factors such as an aging “baby boomer” population, sophisticated patient testing, litigation in medicine and prescription drug coverage continue to be the significant areas of medicine that escalate health care insurance premium costs in America…not EMS billing.

I’ve heard that there is a way to exempt residents of my community from paying any “out of pocket” expenses due to being transported to the hospital by our fire department. Is that true?

Yes it is.  In July 2001, the Office of Inspector General (OIG), an oversight agency for Medicare, ruled in Opinion 01-11 that in the case of a fire department transporting a resident to a hospital, the fire department may choose to exempt that resident from any “out of pocket” expenses as a result of the transport.

The reasoning is clear; the OIG’s ruling was based on the premise that residents of a community pay taxes to support their local fire and EMS agencies and therefore, a community should have the option of using these tax payments for paying any co-pays due, not any “out of pocket” expenses.

As a result, any community in America that provides a public 911 (not for profit) EMS transport service has the option of establishing an EMS transport billing program that does not take “a penny” from its residents as a result of an EMS transport.

Can my community bill for services as the result of a fire engine responding to a car wreck? How about vehicle fires? Structure fires? Can we successfully collect any reimbursements for these types of services?

In all cases the answer is yes. Motor vehicle accident (MVA) billing programs are successfully working in many states across the United States. Additionally, similar programs generating reimbursements from fire departments responding to vehicle fires as well as structure fires have been successful as well.

Details and reimbursement programs differ from state to state; please contact our Sales Department for information.

Our department currently bills for EMS transports and we don’t feel we are generating as much money as we should. How can we realistically compare the financial performance of our current billing vendor with that of HealthServe?

Many billing companies use a factor such as collection percentage to trumpet their ability to generate revenue for clients; in reality, the collection percentage is probably the least accurate way to accurately evaluate the performance of your billing company.

Factors such as charge rates significantly affect collection percentages; in many cases, billing companies perform poorly but due to low charge rates, their collection percentages appear to be high. Conversely, some billing companies may perform well but due to high charge rates, their collection percentages appear to be low.

In a nutshell the easiest, fairest and most realistic method of comparison is to calculate the amount of money your department currently averages per transport. This method of evaluating a company’s performance accurately blends factors such as charge rates, mandatory write-offs, mileage, and information transmittal.

Contact our Sales Department and we will do a financial analysis of your current revenue recovery program as well as provide you with a HealthServe revenue projection.

We have heard that some billing companies have employees with previous or current fire service and/or EMS experience. We are looking for that expertise in our billing company…what does HealthServe offer?

While some companies market “fire service experience” within their staffs, no company in America possesses the depth of fire and EMS staff experience that HealthServe does.

Our Fire/EMS Division Executive Staff consists of four fire service experts; cumulatively, Carl, Steve, Tim and Ted have over 100 years of fire and EMS experience. All four were certified paramedics during their careers and each member of our staff spent at least 26 years serving their communities as a firefighter and a paramedic. Furthermore, Carl and Ted served as fire chiefs during their careers; Steve was a developer of fire and EMS software platforms while Tim served as the EMS Director for his department. Additionally, these four gentlemen have been directly involved in establishing over 100 EMS transport billing and MVA billing programs across the country during their careers in the fire and EMS billing industry.

Be alert as to how some companies market their “fire service” expertise; in many cases, these so-called “experts” are experts in name only…they appear as consultants or members of an executive group yet have little to no impact in the day-to-day operations of their employer. Also, some companies employ so-called “experts” on a part-time basis; consequently, these fire service “experts” are very limited in how they respond to customer needs and in many cases, have substantial conflicts with their full-time careers.

No such conflicts exist with Carl, Steve, Tim and Ted; all four are full-time employees of HealthServe and as such, are well-positioned to serve the needs of each and every HealthServe client.