Ambulance groups ask financial aid; They favor tax, oppose merger
By Patrick Lester
Morning Call (Allentown, Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2006 The Morning Call, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
A pair of Bucks County ambulance groups’ financial woes are reaching what one official called “crisis” levels, prompting calls for a bailout to ensure reliable service to thousands in the northern part of the county.
Leaders of ambulance squads in Dublin and Perkasie say they’re struggling to pay bills and want a steady stream of cash that has been hard to come by at a time when they’re not getting enough from their main funding source -- insurance companies.
“You’re talking about people’s lives,” Bedminster Township Supervisor Eric Schaffhausen said. “Almost all [ambulance groups] are at some level of crisis. I think it’s going to become a major municipal concern in the next year or so.”
Schaffhausen and other municipal leaders hope a study the state is conducting will help solve the ambulance squads’ problems in Upper Bucks.
Although he and others have mentioned the possibility of mergers, oversight by a management group and tax hikes as possible remedies, the state’s emergency health services director says it’s too early to predict what will happen in the months ahead.
Officials said the study, conducted through the state Department of Community and Economic Development, could be completed by the end of the year or early 2007.
“There are no preconceived notions,” said Joe Schmider, director of the state’s Emergency Medical Services Bureau. “Everyone wanted to use the word merger or partnerships, and everyone agreed, let’s do the study and see what it tells us.”
Leaders of Dublin Regional EMS, while acknowledging the financial difficulties, have made it clear they want no part of a merger with Perkasie Community Ambulance.
“If you put one financially challenged company with another financially challenged company, all you’re going to come out with is one giant, financially challenged company,” said Matt Compton, deputy chief of the Dublin squad, which serves Dublin and parts of Bedminster, Hilltown and New Britain townships. “A merger will not happen.”
Officials from Perkasie ambulance, which serves Perkasie, Silverdale and parts of Hilltown, East Rockhill and West Rockhill townships, have suggested the two organizations remain intact, but that a management organization be created to oversee both groups.
“Those guys are trained to do medical jobs,” East Rockhill Supervisor Dave Nyman said. “Unfortunately, medical job training does not necessarily give you management skills.”
Compton said the one fix that could work better than any other is a designated ambulance tax, an idea that’s not always popular with elected officials and their constituents.
The Perkasie group’s financial and management problems have been well documented. Former President Wheeland “Bill” Hill was charged in 1999 and pleaded guilty in 2000 to embezzling at least $200,000 from the group.
The nonprofit organization hadn’t filed tax returns with the federal Internal Revenue Service for several years because its members didn’t know they had to submit those returns.
Perkasie ambulance filed its 2002, 2003 and 2004 returns this year. Squad leaders said recently that the IRS has frozen some of accounts after they failed to pay $90,000 worth of penalties and back taxes.
The group spends about $250,000 to $275,000 annually and has reported no monetary or property assets on its tax returns.
Dublin Regional, a service formed in early 2002 after the borough-based fire company dropped its ambulance service, has struggled financially since it was created. Dublin Regional reported revenues of $159,078 and expenses of $149,333 in 2004, according to its tax returns. It reported total net assets of $76,737.
The financial problems at both companies apparently are affecting their operations. Ambulance squads typically aim to be open for business with workers on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In recent months, the companies in Perkasie and Dublin haven’t been close to hitting that goal.
Perkasie’s in-service time has dropped from 91 percent in June to 63 percent in September. In Dublin, the ambulance group was in operation 93 percent of the time in July and 53 percent in September.
The problems are not unlike what other ambulance squads across the region and state are experiencing. Most groups say reimbursements they get from insurance companies for transporting and treating patients aren’t covering costs.
Compton said a patient might be charged $550, but the squad recoups only about $100. There’s another growing problem: Patients who get reimbursement checks from their insurance companies aren’t passing them along to the ambulance companies.
State Rep. Bernie O’Neill, a Bucks County Republican, has proposed legislation that would require insurance companies to send reimbursements directly to ambulance companies.
“It’s tough for ambulance services to survive in today’s market with reimbursements and lack of funding from fund-raisers,” Schmider said. “It’s all financial.”