Faced with new regulations that require rescue squads to purchase their own drugs rather than having the hospital provide them, Gloucester Volunteer Fire and Rescue Squad has made the difficult decision to begin insurance-only billing for ambulance services for Gloucester residents.
“We’re one of the last ones in the region not to do EMS billing,” said Joe Lenderman, GVFRS’s chief of Emergency Medical Services.Insurance-only billing is the practice of filing a claim with a patient’s insurance company when a patient uses ambulance services. Only the insurance company is billed, not the patient, so Gloucester residents whose insurance doesn’t cover the entire amount won’t be asked to make up the difference.
The squad’s medical director, Dr. Sudershan Gupta, an emergency medicine physician with Riverside Walter Reed Hospital, explained that, while hospitals used to provide the drugs for EMS, now each rescue squad has to purchase its own drugs, create its own pharmacy to store them, and re...