Dedicating Our Lives to Saving Yours
Patient Billing
As one can imagine, the cost of providing pre hospital emergency medical services, like any other medical service, is significant. Variable costs for supplies, vehicles, and staff, as well as fixed costs for things like facilities and insurance all contribute to our overall expenses and the rates we charge our patients. As Webster EMS is not a taxing entity like the local fire departments that provide ambulance service, Webster EMS recovers the majority of the costs of our services through fees billed to the users of that service. In billing our patients for fees not covered by insurance, we are required to follow state insurance law and federal regulations in how we bill, which in turn also affects the rates we charge for our service.
Unlike hospitals, walk in clinics, or your family doctor, emergency medical services cannot charge you by the item(s) used in your care. Whether you had oxygen applied or not, used one bandage or ten, had one or several medications administered, or had an IV started, the amount we can charge must be the same rate. For ambulance services, we can bill only if the response was for an emergency or a non-emergency, and for mileage to the hospital. We are also not allowed by law to have variable bill rates for the services we charge, for example someone that has medical insurance versus someone that does not. The rates we do charge are meant to cover our costs of operations and are at the median for this area. We hope you understand.