CAMDEN, Maine — The independent non-profit group that provides ambulance service to 11,000 residents in Camden, Rockport, Lincolnville and Hope is in the midst of its own emergency.
Board chairman Steve Corson wrote in a letter to the Bangor Daily News that Camden First Aid Association was “teetering on the edge of bankruptcy” two years ago.
A new board and donations helped the organization get through that fiscal crisis, but serious cash flow problems remain, Corson said Wednesday. He now is asking residents and business owners in the four towns Camden First Aid serves to make donations to the service.
The organization gets annual funding from the towns, but collectively those funds account for just 6.7 percent of annual operating costs. Camden provides $20,000, Rockport $24,000, Lincolnville $10,000 and Hope, $2,000. The organization serves just half of Hope, Corson said.
Camden First Aid’s board has met with the town managers and administrators of the four municipalities, arguing that they should provide more funding.
“We’re working on that,” Corson said. The argument is persuasive, he said, “when you look at what other towns pay to run their own ambulances.”
Thomaston budgets $170,000 annually for its ambulance service, and Warren budgets $126,000, he said. Corson estimates that most towns spend between $120,000 and $150,000 to operate their own service.
As is the case with much of health care, Camden First Aid is paid less than it costs to provide service. In the letter, Corson noted the service might bill Medicare $500 for an ambulance call but receive just $300 from the program. And 60 percent of the service’s calls are for Medicare patients.
“MaineCare runs only pay 50 percent of what we bill,” Corson wrote, “and direct billing to the patient can sometimes be a collection issue.” Patients with private insurance result in full payment, he wrote, but those make up just 18 percent of calls.
“If we got all the money we billed for, we’d be OK,” he said Wednesday.
The cost of operating the service is steep. Because staff are available 24 hours a day, the weekly payroll is $10,000. The service also hasn’t been able to set aside money for the regular replacement of its four ambulances during the cash-flow squeeze.
Corson said if every resident served by Camden First Aid sent in a $20 donation, the crisis could be eased. The board also plans to seek donations from businesses.
Donations can be sent to: Camden First Aid Association, attention Julia Libby, service chief, at P.O. Box 368, Camden, ME 04843.
“Corson said if every resident served by Camden First Aid sent in a $20 donation, the crisis could be eased. The board also plans to seek donations from businesses.” And how long would that amount actually help things? Probably not that long.
They are already funded by tax dollars and bill the patients they transport. They also do transports from hospital to hospital, sometimes more than one at a time, some as far away as Boston. For those paying attention, this diminishes their ability for emergency responses that these towns are paying for. They also bill for those trips, which the towns see no financial benefit from. It actually reduces the value of what they are payng for because they now have less resources available to provide the emergency response they have agreed to.
It is not the responsibility of the town to make sure they are asking for enough money. They are a private non-profit business that seems to have alot of trouble managing finances. This has been going on for a while and I think it is time for the Selectboards and Town Managers of the four towns to start looking into why this is. I’m pretty sure they will find that lack of insurance reimbursement is a pretty small part of it. Other services seem to find a way get by, why can’t they?
Because the others are funded fully by the towns; as the article states (Thomaston $170,000). Each town needs to step up to the plate so this will stop being an ongoing problem for these dedicated people.
The problem is you are comparing apples and oranges. The other two ambulance services they cite are municipally owned and operated with all of the money billed for emergency medical transports going directly to the towns to offset the cost of providing emergency medical services to their town. And those towns, as do all but one in Knox County, have only one ambulance. This service has 4, plus an emergency response vehicle. And if you look at the public records, their last service chief was making nearly a six figure salary. What part of that says non profit or well managed to you? There are dedicated people there, I know for a fact. But they and the finances of that service have been grossly mismanaged and it is not right to think that a few months into most fiscal budgets that they can just come back and demand more because they failed in their jobs. Not how the real world works folks.
I respect your knowledge; which I evidently lacked; and apologize for coming on so strong. It is a tough job, am sure most are sincerely dedicated people and hope an equitable solution can be worked out.
Have the salaries been reviewed? Are they within the “norm”?
To give it perspective, he made more than the last Fire Chief in Portland.