Pulaski County’s ambulance fees are going up. Last week, the county commissioners agreed to increase some of the fees the EMS Department charges private insurance carriers.
EMS Director Brandon DeLorenzo explained that the department’s billing company found that insurance companies are willing to pay more than what the county currently charges. “So what they’re recommending is that we bring our current charges up to what the commercial insurance carriers currently pay,” he said. “That would bring our mileage from $12.75 a mile up to $16 a mile, and our BLS emergency, it would bump it from $500 for an in-county resident or $600 for an out-of-county resident up to $750.”
But he said the change would only affect about 30 percent of the department’s bills, since it wouldn’t apply to Medicare and Medicaid. “Medicare and Medicaid, they give their own money, and you take it and you like it,” DeLorenzo explained. “So it’s definitely not going to fix any financial issues, but it gets us back to what everybody else is.”
DeLorenzo also hopes to save money by switching fuel vendors. The commissioners agreed to let him buy fuel from Good Oil. DeLorenzo said that on the day he compared diesel fuel prices, Good’s price was more than 25-cents-per-gallon cheaper than the current supplier’s.
