Warren hires debt collectors for EMS bills

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Debt collectors hired by the city of Warren will soon be contacting people with unpaid bills for being taken to the hospital by the city?s paramedics.

Ann Arbor Credit Bureau, Inc. has a two-year contract to help Warren recover some of the city?s costs for providing EMS transportation for the sick and injured after the service was restored 3? years ago.

?Sometimes you don?t get people?s attention until the collection agency calls. Unfortunately, that?s the society we live in,? Warren Fire Commissioner Wilburt McAdams said.

In January 2010, Warren began to partially restore EMS transport service that was grounded in 2004. During those six years, injured accident and crime victims plus very sick individuals were transported to the hospital by Universal-Macomb Ambulance, a private company. After Warren put its idled EMS rigs back on the streets, the city began billing patients for the emergency treatment and ride to the hospital.

The city has practiced so-called ?soft billing.? Warren accepts as full payment, any amount covered by residents? and business owners? insurance policies and their co-payments are waived. Non-residents who are injured or become sick and are taken to the hospital are billed for amounts not covered by insurance.

Non-residents who can prove financial hardship can apply to the Fire Department for a full or partial waiver of unpaid bills or can ask for an extended payment plan.

Currently, the city has more than 1,000 delinquent accounts. Those unpaid bills total $524,464.

Warren officials hope to put a dent in that total and provide a financial shot in the arm for city coffers.

With no discussion, the City Council recently voted unanimously to hire Ann Arbor Credit Bureau. The firm will work with AccuMed, a company that handles EMS billing for Warren, Shelby Township and several other municipalities, to transfer the records of patients with unpaid bills.

The prognosis, according to Warren, is good. The collections firm, whose clients include the cities of Roseville, St. Clair Shores, Eastpointe, Dearborn, Southfield and Taylor, has a debt recovery rate of 12 percent, according to Warren city records. That?s significantly better than the industry average of about 9.6 percent, McAdams said.

For every dollar it collects, Ann Arbor Credit Bureau will keep 24 cents as a ?recovery fee.? That percentage jumps to 50 percent if the firm collects payments resulting from taking individuals to court.

?If they are unable to generate any money, they won?t make any money,? the fire commissioner said.

Since billing for EMS transportation began 3? years ago, Warren has collected $8,052,000, McAdams said.

AccuMed, based in Riverview, receives 7 percent of payments it is able to collect on its own.

Meantime, EMS runs in Macomb County?s most populated city remain on the rise. McAdams attributed that to a growing percentage of senior citizens and people who delayed needed medical care because they lost their health insurance to the point an illness becomes an emergency.

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2012, the Fire Department responded to almost 15,000 calls for service. More than half are medical runs.

Meantime, officials are reviewing whether to start billing for incidents such as false alarms, hazardous material spills, fires and extraction of drivers and passenger involved in car crashes.

?Residents would get a break. Non-residents would not,? McAdams added.

Source: http://www.macombdaily.com/article/20130807/NEWS01/130809533/warren-hires-debt-collectors-for-ems-bills

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