Oglethorpe County Emergency Medical Services has nearly doubled its collection rate since last year after bringing in Emergency Billing, an external billing company.
EMS transitioned to a year-long contract with Emergency Billing in March, about the same time that Robinson became the EMS director and Jason Lewis moved to county administrator.
Emergency transport is needed approximately six times a day in Oglethorpe County, EMS Director Josh Robinson said. Last year, Oglethorpe EMS collected only 25% of what was billed for these transports. This year, it’s at 48%.
“It’s really hard to make back everything that you put out, just because of write-offs and insurance,” Robinson said.
EMS’ annual collection goal is $650,000, approximately 50 cents of the dollar for what is billed out on average, Robinson said.
Billing was previously handled in-house, but EMS decided to start using an external company because collection revenues were down. Also, keeping up with changing insurance rules and regulations was becoming increasingly complicated.
“It’s just a lot to have to deal with, with one sole person,” Robinson said. The in-house position still exists, but that job is to communicate with the billing company and handle old accounts.
Robinson said EMS hasn’t had challenges with Emergency Billing. In fact, “it kind of allowed us to expand a little bit more on our billing process.”
With Emergency Billing, customers can pay with credit cards, online or over the phone. Those options previously were not available.
When Emergency Billing receives a report from Oglethorpe County EMS, the company reviews it and sends the bill. But despite the bill coming from an external company, the phone numbers on the bills go to Oglethorpe EMS if they have questions.
Robinson said the revenue increase is partly because of Emergency Billing, but also because of other factors.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, EMS didn’t send delinquent accounts to collections and didn’t restart the practice until recently. Collection rates prior to this year didn’t recover.
With Emergency Billing, the in-house employee can focus on tracking down delinquent accounts.
“I feel like it is a good change,” said Angela Jackson, 911 director. “It frees up personnel to do other things, EMS wise.”
Oglethorpe EMS chose Emergency Billing because of the high satisfaction of surrounding counties that use the company, such as Greene and Walton counties. Emergency Billing keeps a percentage of what it collects, approximately 6%, Robinson said.
He said he would recommend Emergency Billing to another county, if asked.
“Nobody likes receiving a bill.” Robinson said. “They’re as willing to work with you as we always were fand that was important to us.”