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Pennsylvania House of Representatives
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=H&SPick=20150&cosponId=16709
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House of Representatives
Session of 2015 - 2016 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: January 15, 2015 12:14 PM
From: Representative Bernie O'Neill
To: All House members
Subject: Emergency Medical Services Direct Pay Legislation (Prior HB 179)
 


In the near future, I plan to re-introduce legislation to address the retention and recruitment needs of our emergency medical services by addressing the current billing practices of EMS.

Specifically, my proposal will amend Chapter 81 of Title 35 (Health and Safety), which governs the emergency medical services system. This proposal simply requires insurers to reimburse an EMS agency that has been dispatched by a 911 center regardless of whether the EMS agency is part of the insurer’s network. The requirements under this bill is that the EMS agency be dispatched by a 911 center and provide necessary emergency care.

When an emergency medical services agency provides emergent care to a patient covered by health insurance with which the EMS agency does not participate, the insurer sends the reimbursement directly to the patient. The EMS agency is then forced to bill the patient directly. This causes long delays for the provider in receiving payment, creating a cash flow problem. More significantly, there are many times that patient fails to forward the reimbursement to the provider and they receive no payment at all.

Please join me in further securing the much needed funding our EMS community needs.

If you have any questions on this legislation, please contact Connie McClure in my Harrisburg office at 705-7170 or by e-mailing cmcclure@pahousegop.com.

Thank you for your consideration and support of this very important piece of legislation.



Introduced as HB347