Pine Haven plans to recoup ambulance costs

“Sundance is charging us now…so they’ve changed their way of doing things,” Pine Haven Mayor Karla Brandenburg said at a recent workshop regarding the changing circumstances facing Pine Haven’s Emergency Medical Services, including the ambulance ride.

The council has been working on a method of recovering at least a portion of these rising costs that will not affect patients who use the service. The billing process the town plans to adopt will bill insurance, but citizens will not receive any kind of bill for their copay.

Jane Merchant, working by “the letter of the law”, has been working with several insurance companies, enrolling them into the service network. The process included a priority list of which she was, at first, unaware, though, “A lot of them wouldn’t even talk to me until I got on board with Medicare, Medicaid wouldn’t talk to me until I got Medicaid lined up.”

She currently has Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross, Workman’s Comp of Wyoming, Aetna, Signa and United Health Care all pending.

The next step is to mail to each municipal and area resident an Assignment of Benefits form. This is a document anyone who has gone to a hospital has signed, allowing the facility to bill insurance directly, “the patient allows us to bill and collect payment on their behalf,” Merchant explained.

However, each Assignment of Benefits is only applicable to the specific billing entity. Any other form signed by the patient is not accepted by the Pine Haven EMS, so Merchant will be mailing these forms out to area residents.

Once signed, the documents should be mailed or dropped off at Town Hall to be on file for emergency situations. These forms do not expire, but must be cancelled or by the individual, according to the volunteer.