By Sam Smith
The Daily Gazette
STERLING, Ill. — County ambulance officials Monday recommended a $125,000 property tax increase, plus a 6 percent service rate increase, to pay for CGH ambulance runs in the Sterling-Rock Falls Fire Protection District.
Authorities hope the 29 percent tax hike — which increases the levy to $587,000 — plus the increased billing will reverse a 7-year trend by CGH Medical Center of losing money as operator of the county-owned ambulance fleet.
Officials do not, however, expect the increases to make much of a dent in the county’s debt to CGH Emergency Services. That deficit is expected to reach about $900,000 by the end of this year.
“This will get us through to next year without making it worse,” said Jim Duffy, chairman of the Whiteside County Board’s Special Services Area No. 1 Committee, which oversees ambulance service.
The committee is taking a wait-and-see approach to long-term financial planning because some of the federally proposed health care reforms include pay increases for rural ambulance service, Duffy said.
The full county board must approve the recommendation, which is included in the ambulance service’s proposed tax levy for the 2009 tax year. Those bills are mailed in 2010.
A vote is scheduled for the November board meeting, but the board first must hold a public truth-in-taxation hearing where residents can ask questions. A date for that meeting has not been set.
Since 1987, the hospital and Whiteside County Board have provided ambulance service to the Sterling-Rock Falls area through a partnership in which the county owns the fleet of four ambulances and the hospital provides paramedics.
The deal was inked as a break-even proposition for the hospital, but the cost to provide health care has grown faster than the rate at which Medicare and Medicaid reimburse the hospital, CGH CEO Ed Andersen said.
The two federally backed programs account for 71 percent of the ambulance runs in the Sterling-Rock Falls area, and Medicaid payments have fallen short of hospital expenses since the early 1980s, Andersen said. Medicare stopped full payment about 2001-2002, he said.
Most private insurance agencies pay in full, but only about 15 percent of CGH ambulance patients have private insurance, he said.
Copyright 2009