Presbyterian ambulance group strikes tentative cope with PRC

Apr. 29—A nonprofit ambulance supplier run by Presbyterian Healthcare Providers might see a 65% charge improve after the group got here to a settlement with the state Public Regulation Fee’s employees.

Albuquerque Ambulance Service had requested a 100% hike in its ambulance charges and a 25% improve in its mileage charges in January.

PRC employees in a February report really helpful a 35% improve in ambulance charges and a ten% improve in mileage. The settlement — to boost base charges by 65% and mileage charges by 15% — marks a compromise.

The rise would place Albuquerque Ambulance Service’s charges — already larger than others within the area — at almost double the statewide averages.

The statewide common base charge for emergency transportation of a affected person is $512; Albuquerque Ambulance Service’s present base charge of $566.40 would rise to $934.56.

The nonprofit’s mileage charge would improve from $11 to $12.65, just below the present statewide common of $12.75.

Albuquerque Ambulance Service payments itself on its web site as “the most important and busiest supplier of emergency 9-1-1 and non-emergency medical companies” within the state. The Presbyterian-affiliated group supplies medical transport all through the area, together with in Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Sandoval counties.

It requested a charge hike of 175% in August earlier than amending its request to 100% in January, citing a retroactive improve to Medicaid reimbursement charges introduced final fall by the state Human Providers Division.

Executives at Albuquerque Ambulance Service have testified through the charge case the group has operated at a loss — backed by Presbyterian — for 4 years attributable to growing prices for labor and provides. The corporate’s most up-to-date charge improve was authorised in 2014.

The nonprofit’s executives and PRC employees signed onto the settlement earlier this month, agreeing the 65% improve would “generate revenues ample to cowl working bills and permit for an affordable return on funding.”

The deal nonetheless requires approval from the three-member fee.