City councilors approve EMSA rate hike
By KEVIN CANFIELD World Staff Writer on Apr 4, 2013, at 9:45 PM
EMSA CEO Steve Williamson
Tulsa City Council
Mayor Dewey Bartlett and former Mayor Kathy Taylor have eight weeks to make their cases before voters go to the polls Nov. 12.
Michigan-based Horizon Group Properties and Charlotte, N.C.-based Collett & Associates, the developer of the Tulsa Hills shopping center, seek to build a large outlet mall on a 64.8-acre parcel at 129th East Avenue and Interstate 44, officials said.
City councilors voted 7-2 on Thursday to maintain a $200 rate increase for emergency ambulance service provided by EMSA.
The increase — from $1,100 to $1,300 — is paid by private insurers only and will not affect customers covered by Medicaid, Medicare or the city’s TotalCare program, according to EMSA officials.
Whether to maintain the rate increase has been the subject of much council discussion since it was approved last summer amid reports of extravagant spending by the organization and a subsequent audit.
The council’s vote Thursday was on whether to maintain the rate or to let it revert to $1,100 on April 22.
It came just hours after Rural/Metro Corp. announced it was withdrawing its bid to become EMSA’s next ambulance service provider.
The EMSA board voted last month to disqualify the Arizona-based company from seeking EMSA’s five-year ambulance contract. The action leaves AMR, the nation’s largest ambulance operator, and Paramedics Plus — EMSA’s current service provider — as the remaining contenders for the new five-year contract, which begins Nov. 1.
“When 80 percent of your user cost is tied to your vendor cost and you reduce the pool of competition among your vendors, there is no way for me to know that you are guaranteeing the best possible rate to the citizens of Tulsa,” Councilor G.T. Bynum, who along with Councilor Karen Gilbert opposed the measure, said after the meeting.
During a Thursday afternoon council committee meeting, EMSA CEO Steve Williamson told councilors that the cost of an emergency transport is $433 but that EMSA must charge much more to make up for the loss it takes on 88 percent of transports.
The 88 percent is made up of individuals who are either uninsured or who are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. That puts the burden on the 12 percent of transports covered by private insurance, Williamson said.
The EMSA CEO compared the billing practice to the practices used by hospitals.
“That charge on that item in the hospital is paying for all the charges that aren’t being paid for at cost,” Williamson said. “So they are cost shifting also.”
Read more in Friday's Tulsa World.
Tulsa City Council
Mayor Dewey Bartlett and former Mayor Kathy Taylor have eight weeks to make their cases before voters go to the polls Nov. 12.
Michigan-based Horizon Group Properties and Charlotte, N.C.-based Collett & Associates, the developer of the Tulsa Hills shopping center, seek to build a large outlet mall on a 64.8-acre parcel at 129th East Avenue and Interstate 44, officials said.
