Rural EMS Crisis and Medicare Reimbursement Discussed in Blackduck

Staff members from U.S. Sen. Tina Smith’s office met Wednesday in Blackduck with regional leaders to discuss the rural emergency medical service crisis that is affect many areas across Minnesota. We had a chance to talk with some of those leaders to understand what they believe can be a solution to the problem.

EMS providers are a critical part of our health care system. They are often the first and only point of contact for patients, and timely ambulances can be a matter of life or death. Despite an increase in demand for EMS, those providers are not reimbursed by Medicare for some of the services they deliver unless a patient is transported to a hospital.

“Medicare does not reimburse people if they are on-scene and they get treatment from a paramedic, but they are not transported to a hospital,” explained Jordan Schroeer, Northwest Minnesota Outreach Director for Sen. Smith “That is a huge problem that they’re facing as there are more and more seniors in these small towns in Minnesota, and fewer calls are actually resulting in being taken to the hospital. More of them are just seeing on-scene care.”

The lack of reimbursement leaves rural EMS providers struggling to balance budgets and stay afloat to provide these critical services to their communities. U.S. Senator Tina Smith, though, might have found a solution.

“The big piece that we spoke about today was the EMS ROCS legislation, which would provide reimbursement, Medicare reimbursement for ambulance services that don’t transport a patient,” said Peter Makowski, North Central Regional Outreach Director for Sen. Smith. “They go to that individual’s home, they maybe give them some medications. Maybe it’s something as simple as lifting them up because they’ve fallen on the floor. Right now, ambulance services, they can certainly bill for that, but the Medicare will not cover it. And that’s something that Sen. Smith wants to fix.”

The Emergency Medical Services Reimbursement for On-scene Care and Support Act, or EMS ROCS Act, will benefit Medicare beneficiaries who rely on EMS by aligning the reimbursement model with the services performed. It will also provide crucial reimbursement for EMS providers for their role in bringing essential health care services to where people need it most, especially in rural Minnesota, where EMS providers service more than just their small town.

“Northern Minnesota and many parts of the state are very rural. Someone was saying that their area for their one agency to cover was the same size as Rhode Island,” stated Schroeer. “People in Minnesota, these EMS agencies, are literally providing service to out east what would be an entire state, and they’re doing it at a small community level with only the funds that the small community is able to afford. And that’s where a huge problem is happening.”

Representatives from all over northwest Minnesota were at the meeting to detail their issues with EMS reimbursement, all of which staffers say will be taken to Sen. Tina Smith. She in turn will take the issue to Sen. Bernie Sanders, the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, in the hopes that the EMS ROCS Act can go through the Senate.