By GREGORY BACON gbacon@observertoday.com

Chautauqua County is working on a solution facing fire departments for emergency medical service billing.

The county Legislature’s Public Safety Committee met last week with Emergency Services Director Noel Guttman to discuss solutions for a change in the state law regarding billing for emergency medical services. Effective July 8, fire departments can now become its own billing agency. Departments can also partner with the county EMS to handle the billing, but if fire departments don’t do anything, the county EMS will be legally required to bill the local fire departments for advance life support calls.

At the committee meeting, Guttman cited a section of the state law that has changed.

“Fire departments that are not a billing entity, that have not elected to be their own billing department and request an ALS intercept from a provider, shall be billed for that,” he said. “And it says they must be billed at the usual customary rates or a negotiated rate.”

That rate is not yet known.

“That right now is the biggest question that I’ve been getting from the departments is, ‘What is that negotiated rate?’ and my answer is that it’s not something that I have the authority to set that rate,” Guttman said.

Even though the change in EMS billing is already in effect, Guttman said it doesn’t appear they have to start sending bills right now. He and Legislature Chairman Pierre Chagnon spoke with the county’s EMS billing company and was informed they have the option to back bill up to 90 days. That would give the county until Oct. 6 before it has to start billing fire departments for ALS support calls.

Guttman wants to use this time period to help fire departments decide if they want to become their own billing agency, partner with the county regarding ALS billing or just pay the negotiated rate, which has yet to be determined.

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He said he’s been working hard to get the word out to fire departments. He said they’ve hosted five group meetings and he’s also visited multiple local fire departments to talk to them directly.

“I’ve been very open and honest with them that each department needs to evaluate what the best move is for them,” Guttman said.

In Chautauqua County, Guttman noted, there are 42 fire departments. Four are currently billing: city of Dunkirk, Jamestown, Fredonia and Silver Creek. There are another seven that do not have ambulances. That leaves 31 fire departments affected by the new legislation. Some of those, including Celoron and Falconer, have already decided to have the county take over its EMS billing.

Guttman said he knows of two or three departments that want to become its own billing entity. At least three departments have yet to communicate with his office on what they want to do. The rest are expected to have the county take over the billing.

Legislator John Hemmer, R-Westfield, asked Guttman if he would be able to come up with a negotiated rate to which he agreed. “I can see what I can extrapolate,” Guttman said.

He was asked to have the proposed negotiated rate to the Public Safety Committee at the August meeting for a vote. Committee members said their goal is to have everything in place by the September legislature meeting.

Guttman said he predicts that by September nearly all fire departments will either decide to become its own billing agency or have the county taking over the billing. He thinks there will only be a couple departments at most that will be billed, using the yet-to-be determined negotiated rate.