http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms...ugene-fire.csp
This link was on another journal's website today. It struck home with me because I recently received an angry letter from a former patient saying that we were trying to rob her with the ambulance bill we sent her and that we should be ashamed of ourselves. Our billing rates are purposely set at what the other ambulance services/departments in the state charge so people can't claim we charge more than anyone else.
I really don't know what people expect us to do. Our fire department as a whole continuously runs in the red when you do straight comparisons between expenditures and revenue, as I would imagine many departments do who run EMS and have an all paid staff. Our annual O&M is 3 million while our ambulance revenue (the only revenue of any substance we have) comes in at just over 1 million. I'm under constant pressure from the council to think of innovative ways to make more money. Raise ambulance rates when possible, start charging for various permits, plus they want me to come up with a plan to charge for fire response (shudder). They'll admit (off the record) that they understand we'll probably never make a profit, but they want to make as big a dent in the red as possible.
It's a common theme these days. People want to have you at their doorstep in 3 minutes when they're having chest pain, but they don't want to pay for it. Frustrating.
This link was on another journal's website today. It struck home with me because I recently received an angry letter from a former patient saying that we were trying to rob her with the ambulance bill we sent her and that we should be ashamed of ourselves. Our billing rates are purposely set at what the other ambulance services/departments in the state charge so people can't claim we charge more than anyone else.
I really don't know what people expect us to do. Our fire department as a whole continuously runs in the red when you do straight comparisons between expenditures and revenue, as I would imagine many departments do who run EMS and have an all paid staff. Our annual O&M is 3 million while our ambulance revenue (the only revenue of any substance we have) comes in at just over 1 million. I'm under constant pressure from the council to think of innovative ways to make more money. Raise ambulance rates when possible, start charging for various permits, plus they want me to come up with a plan to charge for fire response (shudder). They'll admit (off the record) that they understand we'll probably never make a profit, but they want to make as big a dent in the red as possible.
It's a common theme these days. People want to have you at their doorstep in 3 minutes when they're having chest pain, but they don't want to pay for it. Frustrating.
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