How a $2000 Ambulance Ride Shows The Mafia Like Nature Of Healthcare Providers

[SilentShadow 32]

Quote

 

Health insurance companies are raising rates. Employers are decreasingly providing health benefits. Bernie Sanders' plan for expanding Medicare won't reduce costs, many experts say.

 

But this is not a story about that. This is a story about a single, 12-minute ambulance ride.

 

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/2g-ambulance-ride-shows-health-providers-insurers-mafia-ways-article-1.2642848

[x635 4,066]

I love how this guy compares the cost of an ambulance ride to an Uber ride. Dude why didn't you RMA and drive her yourself? I understand how the bill can seem high, but the complacent ignorance of this guy as to what goes on inside an ambulance especially for someone who's supposed to be a journalist.

 

I do somewhat agree about the overbilling of the health care costs by all providers because they know they'll only get a certain percentage of that back from insurance companies is a problem but that's the system.

[newsbuff 286]

2 hours ago, x635 said:

I love how this guy compares the cost of an ambulance ride to an Uber ride. Dude why didn't you RMA and drive her yourself? I understand how the bill can seem high, but the complacent ignorance of this guy as to what goes on inside an ambulance especially for someone who's supposed to be a journalist.

 

I think he wasn't there to RMA her, the school just sent her because if something had actually happened, and they didn't send her to someone else, the school will be on the hook. 

[antiquefirelt 994]

Clearly this guy has the ability to make his opinion seen, too bad the real story won't. He doesn't understand EMD protocols, just in case his daughter was seriously injured. He'd likely be very unhappy if a BLS bus was sent and she had a more significant injury. He doesn't understand that much of EMS costs are part of providing the necessary training and resources to be immediately available to respond? He just doesn't get that until people are there, no one can be sure the requisite level that's needed and after they arrive and determine the injury is BLS in nature it would be more money to wait for a BLS bus to come and transport her or maybe he should find fault with the school who called 911 for such a trivial injury? I'd hardly call the billing rates dictated to us by Medicare as some sort of evidence of collusion between the ambulance company and the insurance companies. Maybe he'd like for EMS to be municipally run, taxpayer funded and free to the users? 

[SECTMB 612]

Lets look at this another way, from an EMT/Paramedic viewpoint.  I'll keep round numbers.  Lets try to see what the total time was. Dispatch to scene, 8 minutes. On scene evaluation and packaging, 15 minutes, transport to hospital, 15 minutes, discharge of patient and preparation for in service, 15 minutes.  Lets give it all 1 hour.  $2000 for one hour of service, one call.  So if that unit does just 8 calls in an eight hour shift are they billing a minimum of $16,000.  How much did the crew earn for that shift?  Anybody got a problem with that.  

 

Take it one step further.  If that one unit responds to just eight calls each day, every day for a year, that amounts to $5.8M per year.  How much does the crew earn annually?

 

On a personal note, I was bitten by a spider a while back and as it was swelling someone suggested it might be a brown recluse bite and I should go to the ER. I took myself. After waiting about an hour I made it to an exam room for another half hour and finally saw someone, don't know if it was a DR or RN, looked at the bite, couldn't confirm what type bite, I left 15 minutes later with a prescription and a $1500 bill. No insurance, I self pay.

 

Last year I needed a laceration attended to. Took myself to a walk in clinic. Waited 15 minutes, was taken to an exam room, had the laceration cleaned, 5 stitches, by a DR, prescriptions and out the door in about an hour, $125. No insurance, I self pay.

 

Our health care system is a mess.  

 

 

 

 

[babhits16 28]

Medicare/ Medicaid reimbursement of these calls typically comes out to about $150 per BLS call (ALS even if no interventerventions are provided), regardless of what the bill actually is for.  EMS agencies drastically inflate their insurance bills in order to get more from the private insurance companies who will often pay the full bill in order to offset the low reimbursement rate from Medicare/ Medicaid.  Most of the time if the bill ends up directly to the patient it is written off, but depends on the agency and how aggressive they are.