Chautauqua County is working on a solution facing fire departments for emergency medical service billing.
The county Legislature’s Public Safety Committee met last week with Emergency Services Director Noel Guttman to discuss solutions for a change in the state law regarding billing for emergency medical services. Effective July 8, fire departments can now become its own billing agency. Departments can also partner with the county EMS to handle the billing, but if fire departments don’t do anything, the county EMS will be legally required to bill the local fire departments for advance life support calls. At the committee meeting, Guttman cited a section of the state law that has changed.
“Fire departments that are not a billing entity, that have not elected to be their own billing department and request an ALS intercept from a provider, shall be billed for that,” he said. “And it says they must be billed at the usual customary rates or a negotiated rate.”