WM Fire Dept. going after delinquent accounts

WM Fire Dept. going after delinquent accounts

Overdue bills for ambulance services going to collection

news@theeveningtimes.com

Free ride, take it easy. All too often that’s the attitude of those calling on the city ambulance. As overdue bills emergency medical services bills mount up, West Memphis Fire Chief Wayne Gately asked permission of the fire commission to retain a collection agency for overdue bills.

Cost to ride the ambulance aren’t what they used to be. Gately said since the Crittenden Regional Hospital closed the trips to Memphis cover more mileage and take longer. Oxygen costs alone are substantially higher for patients. Passing along those expenses in the form of a bill to a patent has also been harder to collect since the old hospital went under. The fire department relied on the hospital collection agency to run down the past due accounts.

While medical billing moved to the fire department after the hospital closed, collections rates dropped off. The city attorney tried to pick up the slack with on the overdue no pays for ambulance service, but results were not as strong as when a collection agency was on the job.

Chief Gately had the numbers to prove it.

The three years after the hospital collection services ended demonstrated steady decline for city Emergency Medical Service receipts.

The last three years reveal the downward results, 2015 brought in $460,398; 2016 collections totaled $367,710, and 2017, receipts were $271,891.

Gately demonstrated a stark contrast in collection success using 2014 numbers from the year the hospital collections stopped.

City EMS has been stiffed more than 70 percent of the time and the chief aimed at improved collection. He indicated every little bit was substantial.

“We went back to before the hospital closed and we had a hospital collection agency, during that eight month period when we had a hospital collection agency, we collected 31 percent of our total billings,” said Gately.

“Since then we’ve averaged just a shade over 27 percent.”

The four percent gap amounted to $144,000 annually according to commission chairman Tracy Catt. EMS collections are sent to the city coffers for general budget use. The six digit difference could fund the equivalent of a large piece of equipment each year.

Gately made the recommendation to employ a collection agency to try to recoup at least the fall off.

“My suggestion is to go with the collection agency the utility department is using because we have not had a collection agency since the hospital,” said Gately. “The reason we didn’t is the collection agency the hospital had used only worked through hospitals.”

City Utility write-offs have improved drastically over the last three years, due in part to changes in billing, shut-offs and collection efforts.

Councilwoman Ramona Taylor moved to accept the recommendation.

“There is no down side to it,” said Taylor. “If we do this it might get people’s attention who didn’t really need to call.”

Gately said as long as a person made an effort to pay the bill, it would not be turned over to collection.

The collection policy would not be heartless.

“We get envelopes from some elderly people with $20 or $5 paying their bill,” said Gately. “It breaks my heart and It takes a year or year and half for some people paying on their bill.”

“Normally those patients would not be turned to collections because they are paying on the bill,” said Taylor. “Collections are for the ones who do not pay anything. When they go to buy a refrigerator and cannot, then they will pay instead of being turned to collection.”

Councilor Marco McClendon wondered if a discount for self pay patients could be offered to ease the pain on the bottom line of the bill. Self-pay means there is no insurance, Medicaid involved.

Taylor indicated the days for a good reason for being un-insured are gone now that Patient Protection & Affordable Health Care Act nicknamed Obamacare were passed. The health reforms have been in place since 2010.

“There was really no reason not to have insurance,” said Taylor. “If they could not afford to pay, they should have gotten a subsidized plan or applied for Medicaid. So I think this is one thing that will push people to be responsible.”

“We did get excited when insurance was mandated.

We thought collections would go up,” said Assistant Chief Jeff Jones. “But it hasn’t happened.”

After the discussion, the commission did endorse the fire department recommendation to retain a collection agency.

By John Rech