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STATUS UPDATE REGARDING SEDGWICK COUNTY-ROBERT J. DOLE VA MEDICAL CENTER EMS CLAIM RECONCILIATION.
Presented by: Mike Scholes, County Manager, and Lindsay Poe Rousseau, Chief Financial Officer.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Receive and file the updated status report.
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Background: In recent years, Sedgwick County EMS has responded to more than 62,000 requests for service and transported more than 42,000 patients per year. More than 1,100 of those incidents per year have been for individuals who had the VA as his/her primary medical care provider. As with any claim, EMS bills only for those claims where an individual has been transported to a medical care facility. Receiving timely payments for VA claims has been challenging since 2014, as of October 2017 a County report showed that the balance owed exceeded $1.5 million since 2014. The County is not alone; a February 2016 Kansas Emergency Medical Services Association survey of EMS providers found that 90 percent of respondents had experienced a slowdown in the processing of VA claims, with some reporting outstanding claims of three to four years. In response to these issues, Kansas Congressman Kevin Yoder sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald on May 3, 2016, in which he said,
“I wish to bring to your attention an ongoing issue in my state concerning billing problems that some emergency medical service (EMS) agencies are having with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Some Kansas EMS providers have reported significant delays in timely payment for services rendered for VA patients…Delays in VA claims have a ripple effect as well, because EMS agencies that transport a patient with VA benefits must submit claims to the VA before submitting to the veteran's other insurance or Medicare coverage. A substantial delay with the VA makes it difficult or impossible for the agencies to file claims with the other insurance providers in a timely manner. The EMS agency is then unable t...
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