To: Board of Supervisors
From: Lewis Broschard, Chief, Contra Costa County Fire Protection District
Report Title: Emergency Ambulance Account Write-Off Report July 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024
☒Recommendation of the County Administrator ☐ Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Acting as the governing board of the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, RECEIVE a report of the July 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024 account balance write-offs of Contra Costa County Fire Protection District emergency ambulance services fees and charges totaling $169,778.97.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The total amount of write-offs from July 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024 is $169,778.97. This represents unrecoverable revenues to the CCCFPD Emergency Medical Services Transport Fund.
BACKGROUND:
On October 11, 2022, the Board of Directors adopted revised policies and procedures for the billing and collection of emergency ambulance services. Policy AMB-6 (Write-Off Policy) requires the Fire District to report all account write-offs to the Board of Directors at a regularly scheduled Board meeting.
The Contra Costa County Fire Protection District responds to community emergency transport needs, obtains client insurance information when feasible during incident response reporting, and makes all efforts to recover service costs.
In some situations, clients do not have insurance or the amount covered by the insurance leaves a balance that imposes a significant hardship on the client. If insurance information cannot be obtained, billing and insurance request notices are mailed to clients to recover costs, primarily from insurance companies or client payments. When insurance information is available, the District can bill insurance companies for emergency transport services provided to their members. However, timely billing periods can pose challenges when the District must file claims within certain time periods, which can be anywhere from 60 days or less to up to one year from the date of services before the claim becomes uncollectible.
In compliance with the recent Write-Off Policy, clients may request that a portion or the entire amount owed be waived through the Compassionate Care Application (CCA). Eligibility for such waivers is based on a sliding scale for clients at or below 250% of the federal poverty level.
Most of the write-offs result from an approved CCA waiver, billing errors, or enough time has passed that insurance companies have deemed the claims uncollectible. The attached report reflects account write-offs due to uncollectible balances in the amount of $169,778.97 for the period of July 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
The Board would not accept the District's write-off approvals report, which would conflict with account receivable accounts due to the uncollectible balances being written off.
ATTACHMENTS
July 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024 Account Write-Offs Report