22-24 - EMS Third Party Billing - Laserfiche WebLink

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BUDGET: According to Emergicon, LLC, their new customers see an average increase of 30% revenue upon transitioning over to their services. This will greatly assist the City with improving to the necessary 4th ambulance crew to meet the current and growing needs of l Ok+ calls a year. It might also help reduce some of the general fund subsidy to this department. The Rate increase will result in an added expense to patients who need EMS services, but this is also impacted by the source and type of insurance they hold. Whether they have high deductible, low deductible, exclusions in their policy, public (Medicare and Medicaid) or private insurance all play critical roles in how much they pay for EMS billing, despite the rate we set. In addition, we should continue to see this department as a business like Utilities and Sanitation, therefore the more self-sufficient it becomes, the better impact to the taxpayers it makes. With the above said, we have reached out to several known Municipal EMS Services in northeast Texas. We have restricted our search to non -metro communities. A table is provided below that shows the comparison. Reading this table, you will see that the City of Paris's current rates are well below that of other communities (below the Minimum). The City of Paris has not kept up with the market nor matching our expenses internally (thus the general fund subsidy). We have also shown the Proposed Rates for the City of Paris (which matches that of Coppell). These rates are predominately within the Minimum and Maximum range of the listed Cities, therefore we believe the rates are reasonable given other EMS Departments. Again though, we must remember that our expenses are different than their expenses (personnel numbers, pay, transport expenses due to distance and number of transports, number of ambulances and equipment costs to stock those ambulances, number of calls a year, etc.), therefore while we can try to mirror rates of other communities, we are not able to simply match our expense to their expense. We have also learned that many of these communities are looking at adjusting their rates again, so this range is likely to shift upwards. In conclusion, we believe our proposed rates are reasonable compared to other EMS Municipal Departments and will greatly help provide a better service for our citizens. Emergicon, LLC charges 7% of all revenues collected by Emergicon, LLC on the City's behalf. There are other lesser fees in their agreement, but this is the greatest bulk of the expense. They are only paid if we get paid. OPTIONS: 1. Approve the Interlocal Agreement and Resolution with the City of Coppell, Emergicon, LLC Agreement for Third Party EMS Billing Services, and Ordinance for EMS Billing Rate Increase. 2. Request additional information on any aspect of this project.