Port ambulance fee may solve staffing crisis

Change in charge will net more revenue, allow city to fund second full-time paramedic to bolster ranks

A CHANGE IN ambulance billing approved by the Common Council Tuesday may help ease the ambulance staffing crisis that Port Washington Fire Chief Mark Mitchell has been discussing for months. Press file photo
By 
KRISTYN HALBIG ZIEHM
Ozaukee Press staff

The Port Washington Common Council on Tuesday took a leap forward in its quest to fund a second full-time paramedic.

Aldermen agreed to change the way the city bills for ambulance services, charging people a base rate of $1,750 per call plus mileage.

By doing this, the city will increase its revenue by $170,000 — enough, City Administrator Tony Brown said, to permanently fund the second paramedic position.

“It probably puts us in a position to think about how to create a third (paramedic) position,” he added, perhaps in the 2022 budget.

The billing change, which was unanimously approved by aldermen, was praised by Ald. Jonathan Pleitner.

“I think it goes a long way in funding our staff on the EMS crew,” he said.

That is welcome news for the city’s emergency services, which has been struggling to staff its ambulance service and has had to depend on neighboring communities to cover its calls at times.

Fire Chief Mark Mitchell has been calling for the city to hire three full-time paramedic-firefighters, which he said is needed to staff the ambulance around the clock.

The city had authorized hiring one full-time paramedic-firefighter but had difficulty filling the position, and late last year aldermen approved a temporary plan to fund a second full-time position for two years.

Mitchell said the department recently filled the two positions. Chris Kuecker, who was a paid-on-call paramedic for the department for about a year, started work as a full-time paramedic on April 19, and Jacob Evaska will fill the other full-time position beginning May 12.

Port Washington isn’t the only community struggling to staff its fire department. A study conducted last year and unveiled this spring concluded that the days when fire and ambulance services throughout the county are staffed entirely by volunteers are numbered.

The study offered six options for municipalities to consider in order to deal with the situation. 

Brown said the Common Council will likely discuss the study and consider its options for partnerships with other communities beginning in June.

“I think we will figure out in the next month what direction we will be looking at taking,” he said.

Brown said that Tuesday’s change in billing is prompted in large part by the fact that the ambulance service wasn’t covering its costs.

A study by Andres Medical Billing Ltd., which handles the ambulance billing, revealed that on average the city collected $950 for each ambulance call, Brown said.

The actual cost for those calls averaged $1,745, he said.

About half of the ambulance calls are paid for by Medicaid or Medicare, which don’t pay the full cost of the service, Brown said.

  While the city charges a base rate, mileage fee and a supply fee that reflects the items used to care for each patient, Brown noted that only the base rate and mileage are eligible for funding through Medicaid and Medicare.

The council’s action also eliminates the resident and non-resident fee structure, replacing it with a single billing fee.

“The cost of providing the service is the cost of providing the service, no matter if you’re a resident or not,” Brown said.

Ald. Pat Tearney asked how confident the city is that the new billing policy will bring in the estimated $170,000 annually.

While that number isn’t set in stone, it is based on historical data, Pat Mannix from Andres Medical Billing said.

“It’s an estimate, but we’re comfortable with it,” he said.

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Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

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