Posted on March 3, 2010 07:00:00 AM
It turns out calling 911 isn’t free. Imagine that. 911 communications may actually cost you money. People who pay taxes aren’t the only ones who are fitting the bill anymore. In some places ambulances are charging fat surcharges for the extra equipment necessary for the ambulance ride? How much does an ambulance ride cost if you are morbidly obese? How does an extra $500 in addition to the base rate.
But even people who don’t require extra equipment will have to start paying extra for the right to make the call to 911 communications. How much extra? How much will calling 911 cost in Tracy, California? Well, if you want to pay a $48 per year fee, you can call 911 communications centers as many times as you want. But if you don’t want to pay the fee, how does $300 per call sound. If you’re having a stroke, calling 911 communications may just cost you your arm and your leg.
That’s right. $300 to call 911 communications for an emergency. Or perhaps the problem is too many people are calling for nonemergency reasons. If you can’t get the frequent abusers who show up at the hospital by ambulance for nonemergent problems to stop calling 911, maybe you can collect their $300 by garnishing their welfare and disability checks.
At some point, our country is going to have to stop excusing the actions of the economic tax abusers and start implementing personal responsibility with real consequences that hold folks accountable for their actions. I think charging a fee is an excellent deterant to unnecssary abuse of a system that is overwhelmed with nonurgent convenience care.
*This blog post was originally published at Happy Hospitalist*
Posted on October 12, 2009 09:00:45 AM
EMS/ED frequent fliers are both a bane and (supposedly) another cost of doing business for EMS systems. Maybe not.
My city of Fort Worth is trying to do something about it, proactively and correctly (emphasis mine):
MedStar program sends paramedic to homes of some repeat callers before they dial 911 | Fort Wor…
FORT WORTH — Last year, MedStar was called more than 800 times by 21 people.
Those “frequent fliers” weren’t necessarily facing life-threatening emergencies. Some may have needed primary care but didn’t have a regular doctor or transportation.
The overuse of ambulance services can divert crews needed elsewhere and drive up costs for taxpayers. Calls from those 21 MedStar patients resulted in $962,429 in ambulance charges, as well as charges for emergency room care. Most of that will never be collected, a MedStar official said, because only 1 in 4 patients transported has insurance….
MedStar is trying to tackle the problem with a new program that sends a paramedic to the homes of some patients before they dial 911.
“We wanted to try and find a better way to keep some of these folks more healthy,” said Matt Zavadsky, MedStar operations director. “We wanted to keep from making transports that we could prevent, and we thought this was a group of patients that we could manage proactively rather than reactively.”
Out of those 21 people, MedStar picked nine to participate in the program.
Read the article, as it’s been a qualified success; while it would be optimal to include all the frequent fliers, reality intervenes. As a practicing doc I haven’t missed anyone, but that’s a good thing. I hope there’s enough money to continue this program, and to slowly expand it.
Good for MedStar.
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
But even people who don’t require extra equipment will have to start paying extra for the right to make the call to 911 communications. How much extra? How much will calling 911 cost in Tracy, California? Well, if you want to pay a $48 per year fee, you can call 911 communications centers as many times as you want. But if you don’t want to pay the fee, how does $300 per call sound. If you’re having a stroke, calling 911 communications may just cost you your arm and your leg.