Ambulance Service of Fulton County shuts down

[BeyondGeography]

GLOVERSVILLE N.Y. (WRGB) - The Ambulance Service of Fulton County shut down on Friday night.

The Ambulance Service of Fulton County is literally boarded up. Its fleet of emergency vehicles idle. Its employees done with what turned out to be their final shift. “The business model is not sustainable,” said Alan Mendelsohn, the service's vice president.

Mendelsohn says the money problem centers on Medicaid calls, which make up a large amount of their work. Mendelshon says the money they get from it just isn’t enough. “We figure it cost us $550 every time one of our ambulances leaves the building. And when you’re only being reimbursed $220 on a large percentage of our calls, and then many other calls we don’t get anything,” he said.

Mendelsohn says the low payout for these calls, coupled with no financial support from towns or the state, just couldn’t be sustained.

...In New York state, police and fire departments are considered essential services, but EMS isn’t.

...The service responded to more than 8,400 hundred calls in 2017.

https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/ambulance-service-of-fulton-county-shutting-down

[shenmue]

1. No ambulances? That's fucked.

National health care now, for pity's sake.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. The irony is that Medicare is a large part of why they closed down...

EMS must be considered a necessary service.

I'll remember this next election. We have excellent EMS services downstate, and I can't imagine what it would be like without them.

[Historic NY]

3. My town does medical billing......

unless you don't have the ability to pay and its funded by the town via ambulance district taxes. They run 7 ambulances 4 fly cars and employ 10 FT paramedics. The end result is they run paramedics to towns and villages that have trouble getting volunteers. They still have an active volunteer base that handle the transports and other non critical care. Its expensive but w/o having the ability to do medical billing they wouldn't survive.

Politicians mucked up a bill between Fire District EMS service medical billing and Ambulance Services medical billing..if the fire dept bills and then needs Advanced Life support for the medicare, called an intercept between BLS & ALS will not pay the Ambulance Service. Only one bill gets paid General Municipal Law 209-b This effects most rural areas.


https://www.nysvara.org/news/2018/Feb/180223pressrelease.pdf