Greed vs Fiscal responsibility

[Guest guest]

Always a challenge to post something here, never know who will want

to beat you up but here goes anyway.

Pecos EMS is a small service that covers a big area in far West

Texas. we respond about 100 times each month and we transport about

70 each month.

When I became the chief our charges were way to low and our

collections were terrible at best. We were using a billing service

that was not doing a very good job. The problems we faced were

severe. Today we are in much better shape, I wont bore you with all

the details but I will touch on a few things we did that made a

tremendous difference.

First we hired a new billing service, one that has a web-based

billing and patient care reporting system.

Second we changed our rates. In the past we billed too low across the

board. Our rates were set at the Medicare rates because most of our

pts are on Medicare or Medicaid. The thinking behind that was to

collect all we could get from the most likely payor. Big Mistake. All

of the Private companies have a rate schedule to and they pay what

they allow or what you charge whichever is less. We left thousands of

dollars on the table in mileage charges alone.

Third, we passed through our city council an in district and out of

district policy which basically says if you are a bonified resident

of our county we will bill your insurance and accept what they pay

and consider our residents taxes and utility fees in leu of payment.

Residents without insurance never see a bill.

The end result of what was done- Our average collections per

transport went from 183.00 per transport to 445.00 per transport. Our

bad debt was reduced by 200K and we did this with out costing our

taxpayers any money.

I dont call billing all you can get greedy, I call it being

responsible to the people who support us with tax dollars year in and

year out.

Contact me off list if you would like more details

Dennis Thorp

dennis.pecosems@...

[Guest guest]

Woo hoo....great work out there Dennis...it takes courage, strength and GUTS to

do some of these things...but it has given the residents of Pecos County a

stronger, more reliable, better prepared pre-hospital system.? Way to go man!!!

Dudley

Greed vs Fiscal responsibility

Always a challenge to post something here, never know who will want

to beat you up but here goes anyway.

Pecos EMS is a small service that covers a big area in far West

Texas. we respond about 100 times each month and we transport about

70 each month.

When I became the chief our charges were way to low and our

collections were terrible at best. We were using a billing service

that was not doing a very good job. The problems we faced were

severe. Today we are in much better shape, I wont bore you with all

the details but I will touch on a few things we did that made a

tremendous difference.

First we hired a new billing service, one that has a web-based

billing and patient care reporting system.

Second we changed our rates. In the past we billed too low across the

board. Our rates were set at the Medicare rates because most of our

pts are on Medicare or Medicaid. The thinking behind that was to

collect all we could get from the most likely payor. Big Mistake. All

of the Private companies have a rate schedule to and they pay what

they allow or what you charge whichever is less. We left thousands of

dollars on the table in mileage charges alone.

Third, we passed through our city council an in district and out of

district policy which basically says if you are a bonified resident

of our county we will bill your insurance and accept what they pay

and consider our residents taxes and utility fees in leu of payment.

Residents without insurance never see a bill.

The end result of what was done- Our average collections per

transport went from 183.00 per transport to 445.00 per transport. Our

bad debt was reduced by 200K and we did this with out costing our

taxpayers any money.

I dont call billing all you can get greedy, I call it being

responsible to the people who support us with tax dollars year in and

year out.

Contact me off list if you would like more details

Dennis Thorp

dennis.pecosems@...

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