Title
Report regarding a resolution authorizing the write-off of $499,950.07 in uncollectable ambulance billing accounts receivable. (Richard Walls, Emergency Medical Services Chief)
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RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
It is recommended that the City Council adopt a resolution authorizing the write-off of $499,950.07 in uncollectable ambulance billing accounts receivable.
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BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION
The purpose of this staff report is to recommend that City Council write-off the balances of 476 uncollectable ambulance accounts, totaling $499,950.07. Department staff last presented City Council with a write off on October 10, 2018. This write off today consists of any debt that has been found to be uncollectable since that last write off date, plus nearly $350,000 in remaining debt from Novato Fire Protection District (Novato) and ADPI, the previous billing providers for the City's ambulance service. This write-off does not include $37,245 of uncollected revenue from accounts that originated with Novato, but are still being pursued for reimbursement.
Efforts to Collect
The $499,950.07 deemed uncollectable has gone through multiple layers of collection efforts. The majority of the uncollectable accounts were reviewed by the department's current ambulance billing contractor, Wittman Enterprises, LLC (Wittman). All of the accounts have then been further reviewed by Resolve Insurance Systems (Resolve), the department's secondary billing provider. The remainder of the uncollectable accounts originated with our previous billing contractors, Novato and ADPI, then went to Resolve. Wittman uses specialized software that identifies patient demographics and locates any insurance programs which a patient may be qualified and assigns a claim to those benefits. Wittman can usually complete this process within a few months and any claim that has had no activity after 90 days then gets transferred to Resolve for secondary review. Resolve then uses a proprietary process to v...
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