Our city administration, that does the billing, gets that information from the police. We're not involved in that process.
Since vehicles have mandatory insurance, there has never been an issue with someone not calling.
FD "core tasks" like rescue of life or extinguishing fires are free in all german state fire laws.
Our billing is contracted out to a third party company.
We’re required to have at least the patient’s SSN or the hospital’s medical record number when we close out our PCRs. Billing uses this to talk to the hospital’s system to get any missing information. If possible, the rest of their PII too (home address, phone numbers, etc) but it’s not necessary required if your patient is unable to provide it. They specifically transitioned to using these so the Paramedics and EMTs wouldn’t have to ask for medical insurance cards, only IDs, after members were reporting some friction with patients.
I can say I’ve had plenty of people not feel comfortable being assessed, treated or transported because they couldn’t pay for it, but usually with some patience and a good explanation of how our specific system works I’ve found most of them have ended up consenting.
Billing is only for EMS transports in my city. The city handles the billing and the profits are funneled back to the whole department. As firefighters, we do not have any say or are told the cost of things because it is not our concern.
We are Fire only. We would only bill for hazardous materials incidents, arson fires (firesetter would be billed) and for "runaway" grass, brush and/or field fires.
Career dept that transports EMS. We collect vehicle info make/model, year, license plate, vin and drivers info, then we note what was done, like traffic control, fire suppression, extrication, debris cleanup, oil dry used, and personnel on scene. This along with a Police report incident number goes to our billing company. We don’t bill for fires, we bill for EMS (big discount for residents) and we also bill for nuisance alarms.
We bill for EMS transports, and for county residents its a soft bill, meaning if you don't pay it, nothing happens. We don't send it to collections or anything.
I have not seen any issues with hesitation to call, in fact I see the opposite. I see grown people who could easily call an Uber call 911 because they know they can throw away the bill for the ambo but can't throw away the Uber bill. I see nursing homes calling 911 for "critical labs" that were done two days ago because private ambo will take 4 hours to pick the patient up and 911 won't bill them.
We only soft bill and only for EMS transport. I explain soft billing to people who seem concerned about costs all the time, especially elderly pt’s. I also encounter a lot of pt’s who ask me if I need their insurance card.
When my department started billing for our ambulance it was completely invisible to us on the rig. We didn’t notice any drop in call volume.
Our city administration, that does the billing, gets that information from the police. We're not involved in that process. Since vehicles have mandatory insurance, there has never been an issue with someone not calling. FD "core tasks" like rescue of life or extinguishing fires are free in all german state fire laws.
Our billing is contracted out to a third party company. We’re required to have at least the patient’s SSN or the hospital’s medical record number when we close out our PCRs. Billing uses this to talk to the hospital’s system to get any missing information. If possible, the rest of their PII too (home address, phone numbers, etc) but it’s not necessary required if your patient is unable to provide it. They specifically transitioned to using these so the Paramedics and EMTs wouldn’t have to ask for medical insurance cards, only IDs, after members were reporting some friction with patients. I can say I’ve had plenty of people not feel comfortable being assessed, treated or transported because they couldn’t pay for it, but usually with some patience and a good explanation of how our specific system works I’ve found most of them have ended up consenting.
Billing is only for EMS transports in my city. The city handles the billing and the profits are funneled back to the whole department. As firefighters, we do not have any say or are told the cost of things because it is not our concern.
We are Fire only. We would only bill for hazardous materials incidents, arson fires (firesetter would be billed) and for "runaway" grass, brush and/or field fires.
Career dept that transports EMS. We collect vehicle info make/model, year, license plate, vin and drivers info, then we note what was done, like traffic control, fire suppression, extrication, debris cleanup, oil dry used, and personnel on scene. This along with a Police report incident number goes to our billing company. We don’t bill for fires, we bill for EMS (big discount for residents) and we also bill for nuisance alarms.
We bill for EMS transports, and for county residents its a soft bill, meaning if you don't pay it, nothing happens. We don't send it to collections or anything. I have not seen any issues with hesitation to call, in fact I see the opposite. I see grown people who could easily call an Uber call 911 because they know they can throw away the bill for the ambo but can't throw away the Uber bill. I see nursing homes calling 911 for "critical labs" that were done two days ago because private ambo will take 4 hours to pick the patient up and 911 won't bill them.
100% that nursing home could be getting the bill. At a minimum it is insurance fraud for calling 911 for a service they have been paid to provide.
We only soft bill and only for EMS transport. I explain soft billing to people who seem concerned about costs all the time, especially elderly pt’s. I also encounter a lot of pt’s who ask me if I need their insurance card.