August 26, 2020
Recently, a group of city leaders, in consultation with Plymouth’s medical billing consultant, AccuMed, conducted a review of the rates and charges assessed for the work of the Plymouth Community Ambulance Service. Those rates and charges were last adjusted in 2008. At this time, the city feels it is necessary to raise the rates and charges in order to better reflect the actual cost of providing ambulance services to the community.
Monday evening the Plymouth Common Council passed on second reading the ordinance amendment.
The increases were based upon recommendations from the city’s medical billing consultant AccuMed, based on standard rates that they see in other communities and insurance/Medicare reimbursement rates.
A Basic Life Support ambulance call for a city resident will be $450 up from $300 and the new fee for non-residents is $550. Advanced Life Support is going up to $550 from $500 and the new non-resident fee would be charged $650. Advanced Life Support 2 will be $850 up from $600 and there is a new non-resident fee of $950. They also increased the per-loaded-mile rate for all calls from $9.50 up to $17.
There are a couple of new additions like a fee for when the ambulance is called to a location and provides care but the patient refuses to be transported to the hospital. Surrisi said, “Currently we don’t charge for that.” The new charge will be $150 for a city resident and $200 for a non-resident.
There is also a $225 charge for paramedic assist services for Advanced Life Support and a fee of $275 for Advanced Life Support 2.
The city attorney went on to say, “We also changed the current provision that says that we will only bill Medicare patients the amount that Medicare will pay for the service. This will allow us to collect additional funds from Medicare patients who also have supplemental insurance that may pay the balance of the normal charges for the service.”
Chief Miller wanted to make some further amendments to this provision before its final adoption on September 14th.