The city plans to bill Medicare and Medicaid patients directly for ambulance service and also expects patients to cover whatever costs the federal program doesn't.
However, the council agreed to set aside community block grant money to provide grants to low-income residents who don't have the money to pay the left-over portion of the bill.The council changed the ambulance billing procedure because of a growing deficit between the service cost and what the two programs will pay. The council increased the ambulance fee from $120 to $288, plus $5.50 per mile, in June when it adopted the 1992-93 budget.
The Public Safety Department sought the increase to fund four new positions in the fire division.
The average ambulance call now costs $325. Medicare and Medicaid typically pay $90 for ambulance service. About 25 percent of the city's ambulance calls involve a Medicare or Medicaid patient.
Medicare is the federal health-care program for people receiving social security; Medicaid is for people on public assistance.
In the past, the city accepted Medicare or Medicaid coverage as payment in full and wrote off the difference, which amounted to $10,000 to $15,000 last year, said Phil Goodrich, administrative services director.
At the new rate, the city expects the shortfall to be $25,000 to $30,000.
About 90 percent of people on Medicare have supplementary insurance coverage, which will probably pick up the difference.
But people on Medicaid will have to draw on their own resources to repay outstanding amounts or apply for a grant from the city's community block grant program.
Using community block grant money to help low-income residents pay for ambulance service is not a new idea. The city discontinued an identical program, which had been in place for two years, in 1988.