Most of you know that I run a towboat out on Block Island each summer (see About Me Page). Today, the Block Island Times reports that the town is considering charging for the services provided by the volunteer Rescue Squad. [click here for complete story]
Rescue Squad may charge for services
05/16/09 – With the town facing a fiscal crunch, the Rescue Squad leadership has proposed charging for its services. The hope, they say, is that health insurance companies would foot the entire bill of a rescue call. The move could almost triple the squad’s budget to about $100,000
Concerns about the uninsured and charging taxpayers that already support the squad stopped the idea from an easy passage at Monday’s fire department meeting. The squad will return before the department next month to try again. It is also seeking the cooperation of the island’s Medical Center.
In interviews after the meeting, Rescue Squad Captain Kate McConville and Fire Chief Kirk Littlefield stressed that charging patients was just an idea at this point. McConville has floated charging patients about $400 per trip, with a goal of charging the most that insurance companies pay for an ambulance response. That way the patient would pay nothing.
The Block Island Rescue Squad is basically an ambulance service. They respond to a few hundred cases each summer, from minor cuts and bruises to major traumas. For injuries that occur on water, either myself or the Harbormaster will transport a victim by boat to the launch dock and meet the rescue squad ambulance who will make the short 1.5 mile trip up to the Island Medical Center. $400 per trip for a five minute ambulance ride.
If the Rescue Squad is going to charge $400 for a 1.5 mile ambulance trip, how much should I charge for a 1.5 mile boat tow? I direct you to read an old post of mine here, where I compare the investment of an ambulance service with a towboat service.
I hope that more municipalities begin to realize that their taxpayers have been subsidizing insurance company coffers for years. If your medical insurance includes coverage for ambulance service, then why shouldn’t the municipalities get reimbursed for providing that?
