Hopewell Borough has adopted an ordinance establishing fees for emergency medical and ambulance transport.
Borough Council members adopted the ordinance on April 3.
“This an ordinance that will allow us to participate in a system with the other Hopewell Valley municipalities where Hopewell Township will administratively act as a billing agent for the first aid squads in Hopewell Valley to bill for ambulance calls,” Mayor Ryan Kennedy said.
“Our participation research is that they will do that only when there is insurance…but if you could not afford it or did not have insurance …. they probably would not seek payment from the user that needs an ambulance.”
Fire tax and grants, which have previously paid for emergency medical services, will no longer be enough with rising operational and medical equipment costs, according to the borough and Hopewell Township Fire District No. 1.
Prior borough ordinances did not include fees for emergency medical services and ambulance transport.
Under the ordinance, for one way there is an initial $800 fee with an additional $30 fee every mile for those receiving emergency medical services or ambulance transport services by either the borough or township Fire District No. 1.
Should an individual receiving those services require oxygen there is an additional fee of $65 that would be charged.
“It would only be an administrative request to an insurance company,” Kennedy noted.
Borough Administrator Doug Walker described it as soft billing. “They make one request to the insurance if they don’t get it, they don’t go after the person that needed the service.”
Kennedy said the funds from the fees would then be collected by Hopewell Township on behalf of all the municipalities and squads.
“Then redistributed back to the fire districts and EMS (Emergency Services) Squads based on the ratios that are developed between the groups which are based on calls and use,” he explained.
If a person receiving medical services and/or ambulance transport is uninsured and confirms they have no insurance coverage the fees would then either be waived or reduced.
Residents in Hopewell Borough, Pennington, and Hopewell Township, and employees of the valley municipalities, the school district, fire district, Hopewell Fire and Emergency Medical volunteers, Pennington Fire Company and Union Fire Company and Rescue Squads, will have their bills seen as paid in full with the borough and fire district’s acceptance of a co-payment if it is required and the amount paid by their insurance company.
There would not be a push to receive further reimbursement for services provided to those individuals under the ordinance.
Outside of those categories, other people that need the services, depending on their insurance, may be required to pay the entire charged fee bill to the borough and fire district.
The township fire district will collect the fees on behalf of the borough for emergency medical services and ambulance transport.
Walker explained that all of funds are going to be collected and used to offset what the borough pays into the shared services.
“So, it is not going to physically come back to the borough, but it is going to be a paper entry back to the borough to hopefully reduce what we need to pay for services in the future,” he said.
“Some of the things we pay into for example – our fire stations have several paid career firefighters that are actually employees of the township and we kind of pay into that for them to be here,” added Kennedy. “The fee would offset that before it came back…”
