DEERFIELD — The Selectboard opted Wednesday to write off nearly $100,000 in medical bills that have not been paid to South County EMS.
Chairman Henry “Kip” Komosa and members Trevor McDaniel and Carolyn Shores Ness voted unanimously to write off $99,383.73 for ambulance runs made between April 30, 2006, and June 28, 2014. SCEMS Director Zachary Smith said this an amount billing agency Comstar has, for a variety of reasons, been unable to collect.
“This will always happen. We will always have bills that are sent out and that we don’t collect on. There’s always going to be a portion of that,” Smith told the Selectboard. “As far as our collections go, we do extraordinarily well. And part of that is most of our patients have insurance — the other part of it is we do an excellent job collecting their demographic information. Comstar does an excellent job of getting it in a timely manner and following up.
“For insured patients, we are collecting in the mid-90 percent, which is outstanding,” he added. “I mean, that’s really a testament to the good data that we’re collecting and the good job Comstar’s doing.”
Smith said SCEMS’ percentage of successful overall collection is in the mid-80s. The goal, he said, is about 80 percent.
He said collections agencies are sometimes used to collect payments from people identified as choosing to not pay their medical debt even though they have the ability to. He said 16 percent of uninsured patients paid their bills in Fiscal Year 2018.
Komosa asked if there is any effort to set up simple payment plans for those who have difficulty paying.
“We want people to call for help,” he said. “But it’s subsidized by the taxpayers. … And I see these large dollar amounts of write-offs and I want to be assured, and I think the taxpayers want to be … assured, that there’s diligence being followed to get this money.”
Smith said that is handled by Comstar because SCEMS does not have the time or resources to.
Smith also stressed that he and other medical emergency personnel are in the business of saving lives, and no one will ever be denied treatment due to an inability to pay for it. He said the business end will always be handled after the fact only. He said the top priority is delivering quality, humane care.
“We’re not going to swipe your insurance card or your credit card before we load you in the ambulance,” he said.
Smith said a standard SCEMS ambulance ride typically costs between $800 and $900, with that price increasing if a paramedic is needed. He explained to The Recorder the difference between a paramedic and an EMT or advanced EMT is the amount of training and the scope of treatment they can perform.