Rogers ambulance revenue

The bulk of revenue generated by the Fire Department is transporting people by ambulance. It’s also the city’s largest revenue source that’s not tax revenue. The Fire Department bills $3 million for ambulance service annually, but it collects less than half of that. Those figures include supplies, drugs and service and the cost of constant readiness. Poor reimbursement is partly because the payment structure is archaic, Fire Chief Tom Jenkins said.

the hospital will either help keep those calls to a minimum or bring a heftier payment in return, Jenkins said.

Some of the increased fees include a $200 charge for people who are treated but not taken to the hospital, up from $187.

Hourly rates for ambulance standby time also increased. Rogers previously charged nonprofit groups $40 and $90 for others but now will charge an acrossthe-board fee of $100.

There also is a new charge of $250 for rural fire response, Jenkins said.

“We find our services being used for incidents that are not life-threatening,” Jenkins said. “This is a problem that is not unique to Rogers. People think that our resources are unlimited, but they’re actually finite.”

Patient assistance for nursing home facilities, a category created eight years ago, will cost $150, up from $100.

Recurring calls from nursing homes and assisted-living facilities have burdened the Fire Department, Jenkins said.

“One of the things we’re seeing more and more are elder care facilities that will call us to lift patients who aren’t injured,” Jenkins said. Assisted-living facilities rely on firefighters to do lifting rather than risking injury to their workers, Jenkins said.

The Fire Department is under no obligation to provide that service. Since those requests are regular, the increased fee aims to prevent abuse of department services, Jenkins said.

“We don’t want to assume their liability; it’s not our primary job,” Jenkins said.

Kim Weaver, manager of assisted-living facility Ozark Terrace Health and Rehabilitation, said its staff only calls the Fire Department when there’s an emergency.

“I don’t know why other facilities would call” for help lifting patients, Weaver said. “We have a (mechanical) lift that we use for that and would never call for that” reason.

Pam Wood, marketing director for Innisfree Senior Living Community, said it’s the facility’s policy to depend on the Fire Department for lift service.

“If we have a resident who falls, we don’t pick them up,” Wood said. Staff members are told to instead call the Fire Department. “We call them more than we’d like. One week it could be just once; the next week it could be four times.”

The city has only four or five ambulances ready at all times, so when an assisted-living facility calls for help lifting a patient or an elderly resident simply needs transportation to a doctor’s appointment, it’s hard to justify the use for a nonemergency, Jenkins said.

“If you get calls from someone out of the city, who by the time someone got there realized that nothing was wrong, and you’ve had several other emergency calls in the meantime, how do you handle that?” Alderman Marge Wolf asked Jenkins.

The department is mindful of having enough ambulances available for life-threatening emergencies — its primary purpose, Jenkins said.

Transport to the hospital from within the city ranges from $485 to $875 along with a mileage of $17.50 per mile, according to documents provided at the council meeting. Those rates are up from a range of $400 to $550 and mileage of $10 per mile, according to the city website. The fee structure depends on how severely the patient was injured or in need, Jenkins said.

Transport to the hospital from outside the city ranges from $500 to $900 depending on the level of care. That cost is up from a flat rate of $775. It has with the same per-patient-loaded mileage rate of $17.5 per mile. Transport to a medical helicopter within the city increased from $187.50 to $200.

“We don’t want to be too high or too low, but at the same time, cost goes up,” Jenkins said.

“We find our services being used for incidents that are not life-threatening. This is a problem that is not unique to Rogers. People think that our resources are unlimited, but they’re actually finite.” — Tom Jenkins, fire chief