Riverhead Town is moving toward billing users for ambulance services — at least for victims of motor vehicle accidents.
The town board agreed today on a plan to bill for motor vehicle accident transports.
“There are 1,000 accidents a year in the town,” Councilman John Dunleavy said. “People come out here and get into accidents and the Riverhead taxpayer gets stuck with the bill,” he said. “It’s not fair.”
The board has discussed billing users for ambulance services in the past but some board members and the Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps, the private nonprofit corporation that contracts with the Riverhead ambulance district to provide emergency medical services in most areas of the town, were reluctant to institute such a policy, citing concerns that people without insurance won’t call an ambulance because of the cost.
“Everybody’s got auto insurance and if not, there’s no-fault,” Dunleavy said.
Dunleavy brought Port Jefferson EMS executive director Robert Stoessel in to meet with the board at today’s work session. Port Jefferson EMS, which contracts with the Town of Brookhaven, Village of Port Jefferson and Village of Belle Terre to provide emergency medical services to the communities of Port Jefferson, Belle Terre, Mt. Sinai and Miller Place, began billing for ambulance services rendered within the two incorporated villages in 2011.
Councilman James Wooten, the town board liaison to the ambulance corps, said medical billing for accident transports is going to be incorporated into the new contract with RVAC. Wooten has been working with deputy town attorney Annmarie Prudenti to negotiate a new five-year contract with the RVAC board of directors.
“They are receptive,” Wooten said after today’s meeting. “For general medical billing they are still reluctant. I think as RVAC starts to realize these revenues, they may have a change of heart down the road.” RVAC wants to set aside 10 percent of billing revenues for a capital improvement fund, Wooten said. RVAC board members have long sought expanded facilities, complaining that the corps outgrew its existing headquarters almost as soon as it was built.
“There’s not opposition to this” on the RVAC board, Wooten said. “I think once revenues start to come in, they will look favorably on expanding it.”
Dunleavy and Supervisor Sean Walter have been proponents of medical billing since 2012. Councilman George Gabrielsen has been opposed to it because of the financial impacts on uninsured residents as well as insured residents who remain responsible for copayments and coinsurance. Gabrielsen said today he is “good with” billing for accident transports.
Port Jefferson EMS is the only ambulance service in Suffolk County that bills for its services. Stoessel said ambulance services in Nassau County, NYC upstate and across the country bill for services.
“We’re not blazing a trail here,” Stoessel said.
The Town of Brookhaven has not authorized billing, so Port Jefferson EMS only bills for calls within the two incorporated villages it serves.
Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps answers about 3,000 calls per year. It has an operating budget of $1.3 million, Walter said. While it employs paid responders, most of its EMS members are volunteers.
RVAC’s current contract expires Dec. 31. No representatives of the corps were at today’s town board meeting.
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