County considers ambulance billing

By John Crane

Published: August 4, 2008

CHATHAM — Pittsylvania County officials hope to set up a meeting with EMS workers and first responders to determine whether to adopt a countywide ambulance billing system.

The Board of Supervisors’ Fire & Rescue Policy & Procedures Committee mulled the benefits of the program during a meeting Monday afternoon.

Committee Chairman Fred Ingram said constituents in the Callands-Gretna District, which he represents, support ambulance billing.

“Fire and rescue in this county is big business,” Ingram said. “We are a huge county. We’re going to have to grow up.”

The county’s rescue squads do not bill patients for their services.

Dan River Supervisor James Snead, however, said some of the county’s fire-and-rescue chiefs want to do their own billing.

Some may already be on their way to setting up their own billing systems, County Administrator Dan Sleeper said.

A countywide billing service needs to be implemented to prevent inconsistency among rescue organizations, Chatham-Blairs

Supervisor Hank Davis added.

“If we don’t adopt a countywide program, we’re going to have chaos,” he said.

Several details will have to be worked out if the county implements the system, including whether the county or each rescue station will perform billing and collections, and whether to set up ambulance-service subscriptions for customers.

The committee also discussed whether to set up a program to train dispatchers to ask questions during a call to determine whether it’s a true or high-priority emergency.

Emergency backup is another issue. Regional One, which provides backup for the county, is asking for an annual $75,000 subsidy from the county to continue its service.

The request is due to increasing fuel costs and other losses, Regional One EMS Executive Director Tim Duffer said in a letter to Sleeper.

Regional One, which bills county residents for its backup services, suffered $126,000 in unpaid ambulance bills for county services in 2007, he wrote. The emergency provider “is not able to absorb such a loss and continue with the same level of service,” Duffer stated in the letter.

During their regular meeting Monday night, supervisors voted to table a proposed amendment to mandate radon-detection or radon-removal equipment in new homes. The change would have established radon requirements as a condition of building inspections of all new homes in the county. It also would have brought the county in line with the 2006 Virginia Construction Code, which took effect May 1.

Contact John Crane at or (434) 791-7987.