Rates, Billing & Payment

Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance policies include the cost of ambulance transport.  As the need for additional emergency responders increases, local governments have sought ways to pay for these services without raising property taxes. Many other local governments in Colorado have found that billing Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance for ambulance transport services has resulted in recovering revenue to help fund Fire/EMS services. 

Suppose you have private insurance or are covered by Medicaid or Medicare. In that case, it will probably not affect you because you have already paid for the cost of ambulance transport through your policy or coverage.

The LFPD contracts with a service to handle ambulance billing. The insurer, whether Medicaid, Medicare, or a private company, will receive the bill first. Patients are not billed until all insurance options are exhausted.

It is our experience that most insurance companies pay 80% of the charges for the service.

If your insurance company pays, you are responsible only for any co-pays or deductibles. However, it is a good idea to check your policy to confirm what you are responsible for paying.

The billing company accepts cash, personal checks, money orders, and credit cards.

If you do not have insurance, an ambulance subscription, Medicaid, or Medicare, a bill will be sent directly to you. If you cannot pay in full, the billing agency will work with you to set up a payment plan.

After the Affordable Healthcare Act, payments from individuals will account for about 5% of total revenues recovered. 90% of the revenue is expected to be retrieved from Medicaid, Medicare, AHA, and insurance company payments.

Louisville EMS revenue recovery policy includes financial hardship provisions.  If you can demonstrate financial hardship under the District’s policy, a substantial reduction is available (up to 100% for those with a household income under $25,000).  The policy provides credit to your bill as follows:

Range of Annual Income: $0 – $25,000
Potential Reduction: 100%

You can pay the bill on a payment plan.  If at any time during the billing process you claim a financial hardship that prevents full payment of the invoice, you will be sent a Financial Hardship Certification Form.  You must complete this form, attach the required documentation and return it.

LFPD will not deny ambulance service to those with delinquent accounts or anyone else. Emergency responders will not know who has paid and who has not paid.

Under most circumstances, no, you will not receive a bill. However, there may be a small fee for incidents that require significant care and equipment.

Unfortunately, health insurance premiums continue to rise regardless of whether or not a community decides to bill for EMS transports. Such factors as prescription-drug coverage, litigation, technology improvements in the medical field, and depressed insurance company investment returns have resulted in escalating health insurance premium costs. However, ambulance transport costs represent less than 1% of health care expenditures. Many other local governments in Colorado have implemented a revenue recovery program for ambulance transport fees, and they have reported no evidence that EMS billing increases health insurance premiums.

When LFPD transports a paitent they are asked to provide any insurance information they have at the time of service. Attending to the patient’s medical needs is the first priority.

If insurance information is not available at the time of service, the billing company will attempt to obtain the information at the hospital. If the information cannot be obtained, you may receive a letter asking you to provide the information. When the billing office receives the information, your insurance will be billed. You will not receive any further correspondence or bills until the insurance company has made a determination on your claim.

Yes, we will gladly file all insurance claims and forms.

Our charges are $900 for a standard Basic Life Support (BLS) call and $1,170 for Advanced Life Support (ALS) for residents of the District. A charge of $15 per mile, from the location of your call to the hospital, will also be part of each bill. You will not be charged for the distance the ambulance must travel from the fire station to get to you. While these rates may appear to be significant, they are consistent with most of the Front Range ambulance services.

A large portion of the revenue that the LFPD anticipates collecting from this program will come from Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare requires mileage to be included in determining the total amount covered for ambulance transports, and Medicaid calculates the allowable rate to be reimbursed based on mileage. The District needs to be uniform in its billing procedures and, therefore, charges mileage on all bills.

More than 40 cities, counties, and towns in Colorado currently bill for emergency ambulance transport to recover revenue. Nearby billing localities include Lafayette, Superior (Mountain View Fire Protection District), Westminster, North Metro (Broomfield/Northglenn). Our research indicates that nearly 80% of Colorado residents live in localities that bill for EMS transports. Nationally, that percentage approaches 85%.

For more information about Fire and EMS services in Louisville Fire District, please call 303-666-6595. If you have a billing question, please contact our billing agent, EMS Billing Solutions @ 303-431-6181 or 877-877-9550 (toll free). The billing office is open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. except on holidays.

Approximately 36% of EMS calls are from non-residents. Please note that non-residents are charged a higher rate than District residents.

Payments are collected from non-residents in the same way as payments are collected from residents.

The LFPD has a federally required Health Insurance Privacy Protection Act (HIPPA) Compliance Program in place to protect your health information.

No city and county departments have user fees, including the schools, parks and recreation, building inspection, planning, and public utilities.

User fees are a sound way to raise the money needed to operate programs without using general tax money and are considered fair because only the citizens who use the service pay for it. In this case, funding Fire/EMS needs through revenue recovery means that only the people who need ambulance transport pay for it, with the vast majority of these revenues collected from Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance companies.