Massachusetts Governor Rejects Ambulance Payment Legislation

[News]

Health insurance companies are praising Gov. Deval Patrick's decision to kick back to the Legislature a bill that would ban insurers from sending payments for out-of-network ambulance services to patients, who are then supposed to pay the service providers.

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[ERDoc]

This is nothing more than the insurance companies trying to screw providers and make more money. We had a similar thing happen to us and our collections plummeted. Do you really think if an insurance company sends someone a check, they are going to pass it on to the EMS agency? Nope, not gonna happen in most cases. Just one more example of the providers having the least amount of power over the practice of medicine.

[island emt]

Even worse is the fact that they will send the crackhead [oops Pt ] the check with a reduced payment and they will thinks it's a bonus from heaven.

Once they sign the check at the check cashing store, the account is paid as far as the insurance company is concerned.

What they are trying to do in Mass is force all their insureds to only call the bamblance they have contracted a discount hauling fee with. which means that if you get hurt somewhere and call 911 you are using an "out of network provider".