City considering fees for GFFR ambulance transport to recover costs
Great Falls Fire Rescue is proposing to bill for transporting patients in city-owned ambulances to recover costs as their usage has increased.
Jeremy Virts, GFFR’s deputy chief of EMS, said that GFFR had started their ambulance transport service to provide surge capacity to fill a void in the local emergency response system.
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During the Jan. 18 City Commission work session, Virts said that over the years since, they’ve seen the need for that service grow.
Currently, there’s no mechanism for GFFR to recover the cost for offering ambulance transport services, which includes staff time, paramedic and EMT training, fuel and consumable supplies.
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“The cost of this stuff is enormous,” Virts said.
GFFR is a portion of the city’s $27.7 million public safety budget and the fire department is $10 million in the current budget.
While costs have increased, the city’s available resources to generate revenue is limited. For example, in the current budget year, the city’s property tax revenue is $22.4 million, less than the public safety budget.
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The fire department charges for some services, such as safety inspection certificates, and Virts told commissioners that the cost to provide ambulance transport for an increasing number of calls, is significant and increasingly difficult to absorb into their budget.
In 2015, GFFR handled five ambulance transports, which could be absorbed into the budget.
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But 2021, the department transported 74 times, a peak, likely due in part to COVID, Virts said, and now, 67 percent of 911 calls are medical.
In November, GFFR Chief Jeremy Jones told The Electric that fires have been diminishing with fire prevention efforts and code enforcement and the national trend has been for fire services to absorb more medical response efforts over the last few decades.
During a June work session, Jones told commissioners that in 1970, there were 825 calls for service. In 2020, there 8,575 calls.
Jones said that in 1989, there were 1,433 calls for service and that was the year the department was cut from 68 firefighters to 60.
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Virts told commissioners during the Jan. 18 meeting that medical response has become a big part of the department’s mission, training and certifications.
City Manager Greg Doyon said that the city has a “robust response to medical calls in the community” and city ordinance outlines how medical transport is conducted and the city contracts with Great Falls Emergency Services as the primary medical transport agency.
GFES bills patients for their services, some of which is covered by insurance, and GFFR is proposing a similar medical billing system with a third party company, Pintler Billing, a Montana company that other fire departments in the state use, Virts said. The company would take a cut of the collections, according to city staff.
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GFFR is transporting more often during surges, when there aren’t enough ambulances or staff to respond to calls, Virts said.
Virts showed commissioners a chart based on data of when no private ambulances were available in the city.
In January 2021, there were 39 hours with no private ambulances available to respond. GFFR transported two patients that month.
In September 2021, there were 57 hours with no private ambulances available and GFFR transported 12 patients, Virts said.
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“It only makes a difference if you don’t need an ambulance,” he said.
Staff asked commissioners for direction and whether they supported moving forward with developing a cost recovery system for GFFR ambulance transports.
Commissioners indicated support for moving forward.
GFFR currently has two ambulances.
In 2017, the city purchased an ambulance to replace the used one that was purchased in 2006.
In November, GFFR put their new ambulance into service. That ambulance was purchased through a Community Development Block grant from the city.
Over the summer, the City Commission approved a CDBG request from GFFR for $355,042 for the new ambulance that is based out of Fire Station 1 downtown.
The current list of priority projects for the city’s American Rescue Plan funds, which are federal COVID relief funds, includes a proposal to purchase two new ambulances.
The city has spent the last few years working to add paramedics to their ranks and has partnered with Great Falls College-MSU for an internal training program and some firefighters pursued paramedic training on their own.
Doyon said staff would further develop the proposal for ambulance transport fees and bring that information back to commissioners for consideration.
