The Portage City Council has approved a new ambulance contract that will keep Portage and surrounding towns covered for the rest of the year with an option to extend into 2024.
In September, Aspirus Wausau Hospital informed the city it was not going to extend the ambulance contract that has covered the city since 1999 and terminated the contract. Earlier in the year, Aspirus sent an invoice for $859,040 to the city. Portage officials declined to pay that invoice, and Aspirus terminated the contract.
The 1999 contract outlined a way for the ambulance service, which was Divine Savior at the time, to send an invoice for operating deficits. City officials, however, said Aspirus did not meet certain notification requirements for the invoice.