Wednesday, July 03, 2019

PSA, plan ahead and avoid ambulance rides, call a taxi, uber, or friend instead and save thousands. No joke.

Base rates charged by American Medical Response range from $1,631 to $2,154, depending on the level of care required by an emergency call. The new range will be $2,022 to $2,671.

The rates for basic care are already the highest in the county and will remain so. For advanced life-saving needs, the new rates will be just a little over the county median.

AMR  pays the  San Diego $10.7 million annually

the portion of transported patients covered by Medicare and MediCal just a few years ago was 30 percent, and now it has nearly doubled. Medicare reimburses ambulance services $430 while MediCal provides $135, amounts he said do not come close to the cost of responding to a call.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2017/oct/25/charges-ambulance-rides-rise-san-diego/

No state surprise medical bill laws with surprise-billing protections apply to people with self-funded employer-sponsored health insurance plans, which are regulated only by federal law. That’s a huge exception: 61% of privately insured employees are covered by self-funded employer-sponsored plans.

Today, ambulances are increasingly run by private companies and venture capital firms.

Ambulance providers now often charge by the mile and sometimes for each “service,” like providing oxygen. If the ambulance is staffed by paramedics rather than emergency medical technicians, that will result in a higher charge — even if the patient didn’t need paramedic-level services. Charges range widely from zero to thousands of dollars, depending on billing practices.

The core of the problem is that ambulance and private insurance companies often can’t agree on a fair price, so the ambulance service doesn’t join the insurance network. That leaves patients stuck in the middle with out-of-network charges that are not negotiated

26% of these trips were billed on an out-of-network basis according to a study of over a 1/2 million ambulance trips

Kaiser Health News’ review of complaints revealed two common scenarios leaving patients in debt: First, patients get in an ambulance after a 911 call. Second, an ambulance transfers them between hospitals. In both scenarios, patients later learn the fee is much higher because the ambulance was out-of-network, and after their insurer pays what it deems fair, they get a surprise bill for the balance, also known as a “balance bill.”

Most complaints reviewed by Kaiser Health News did not appear to involve fraudulent charges. Instead, patients got caught in a system in which ambulance services can legally charge thousands of dollars for a single trip — even when the trip starts at an in-network hospital.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ambulance-surprise-charges-20171129-story.html

And then, there are the ambulance trips between hospitals, because a patient needs the medical equipment over there... and that's normally going to involve a Registered Nurse. That means extra cost. And if the patient is in a critical condition that requires a dr ride along, oh wow, that's gonna cost someone an arm and a leg.

How do I know? Well, you readers from 9 or 10 years ago might recall my girlfriend at the time, Just A Car Gal? She was a dispatcher for an ambulance company that only did between hospital rides.... because those are lucrative, and clean. There are no chain saw victims to pick up, no crazy drugged out wackos, no gang war victims, no road side mangled people to move. Just hospital cared for patients who need to go to some other hospital for those incredibly huge and rare MRI machines, or Cat scans, or whatever. 

5 comments:

  1. This is so surrealistic for me. I live in a country where we have universal health care, it's far from perfect BUT when you are calling medical help, dispatcher send ambulance. We all pay our taxes just for that, to have those basic things ready to action any moment. No matter if you are poor or rich or homeless, we ALL pay taxes that Ambulance ride for everyone. You can have a private Ambulances services but they are for transition between clinics or hospitals, First Responders are assured by government. This is so surrealistic to me because there is just a step from paying for other "services"... imagine there is a fire, fire truck arrive and one of man walk to you with terminal, if you pay for "service" they will start to work on that. Same thing with police, ect.

    Damn... Americans pay a lot of taxes, some of them should at least return to them in form of fraking Ambulance service for EVERY citizen without need to stop at ATM.

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    1. I think we pay for the fire dept if they have to show up, and the police make us pay by writing tickets. They like writing tickets, and they don't see themselves as only needed when called, they are out looking for a reason to write out tickets.
      THings are quite expensive, all around

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    2. Aye, but imagine the situation when you call to report fire in your own house and dispatcher first ask for your credit card number to charge you for this "order". With more payment after proper cost of action will be know. And I know there are some "private" Firefighter teams, there was something about that related for some rich dude saving the neighborhood in California fires with hired private team.

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    3. I am not going to waste the time on the topic that it could get, just to show I know what I'm talking about, but maybe you trust me enough to not bother looking it up for yourself when I tell you that fire departments in the USA got started by insurance companies, and you would only get your company to reply to your fire, and you had the brass plaque on the front of your business or residence to show what company you were paying for fire insurance and protection.
      More recently, San Francisco was among the last major city to have private fire companies. There was a movie about it around 20-30 years ago.
      True, we don't call and give credit card number, but, they do charge after the fire is out, and the cost is worked up, and the insurance company pays, if they didn't cover the entire cost. It's simply not mentioned in the news, as it's not "news" it's just an everyday event, but even so, it's rare to have a fire anymore, as we have such strict building codes.... we've prevented the majority of foreseeable disasters.
      Even earthquakes.
      Yes, Malibu California, the ultra rich paid independant fire department fire fighters to prevent their 7 figure investment properties from getting burned

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    4. Such a different approach, our firefighters start as City create one to prevent fires in city lines. It was never privately owned, city own them and then they merge in to Nation Firefighter Service and Volunteer Firefighter Service. Insurance company will pay you if you had insurance after Firefighters determine what was the reason of fire but thats all.

      I will dig for that movie you mention, that is interesting piece of history I had no idea exist. Thx.

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