When you call 911 with a medical emergency, you probably want to see an ambulance soon after. But rural health workers across the Midwest say it’s getting harder and harder to get that ambulance to your door.
When it comes to paying the bills, North Dakota’s rural ambulance services often face critical troubles of their own.
“To put it bluntly, we’re struggling,” said Mark Weber of the North Dakota EMS Association. “And have been for many years now to keep rural ambulance services alive and functioning in North Dakota.”
Ambulance companies are paid per trip through reimbursements.
Weber said it can cost about $15,000 per year to operate a typical rural ambulance. If that company transports 100 people per year, each ride would have to cost $1,500 dollars per call to break even.
Gary Wingrove of the National Rural Health Association said reimbursements from private insurers and government programs don’t pay nearly that much per ride.
“The hospitals get cost-based reimbursement as a recognition that they have lower volume,” Wingrove said. “And we need something similar for the rural ambulances.”
The downside, Weber said, is it could cost a lot of taxpayer dollars to shift the pay system for ambulances.
Republican Oklahoma Sen. Kent Conrad, a long-time champion of rural health care providers, recently introduced a bill that would raise Medicare payments to ambulances by 6 percent and extend a bonus payment for “super-rural” areas for five years.
“Access to emergency medical services is vital, particularly in rural communities where individuals may have to travel long distances to reach a hospital,” Conrad said in a statement. “Any delayed response can mean the difference between life and death.”
But Wingrove and Weber both said this type of bill doesn’t solve the problem. They say the answer lies in the hands of communities.
If they want an ambulance service, then they’re going to have to support it the same way they would support other city services like snowplows,” Wingrove said, “Police officers and other things that are important to them.”
Local communities may have to consider those factors sooner than later. As the federal government turns its focus on cutting budgets, and not adding to them.