The city is hereby empowered to recover emergency response expenses incurred by virtue of its response to any emergency from any person, corporation, partnership or other individual or entity who caused such a response, pursuant to the following procedure.
(A) In the event of any emergency response, the city may recover all costs associated with the response to the call including, but not limited to, worker’s compensation benefits, fringe benefits, administrative overhead, costs of equipment, costs of equipment operation, costs of materials, costs of disposal and cost of any contract labor and materials.
(B) The city will use the current allowable ambulance rates as adopted by the state’s Department of Health pursuant to U.C.A. § 26B-4-152 and Administrative Rule R426-8-200, as it may be subsequently amended or revised. Any amendments, modifications, supplements or later edition to said code shall constitute the code then in effect under this subchapter.
(C) The city may use a third-party billing provider to assist in the recovery of costs associated with an emergency response.
(D) Clients shall be billed for the actual cost of supplies, plus a 300% mark-up for restocking, purchasing and inventory expenses.
(E) At no time will a Medicare and/or Medicaid recipient be billed for more than what is allowable by Medicare and/or Medicaid.
(F) When requested and a full payment is received from the patient within 30 days, a 10% discount shall be given.
(G) Payment plans will be tailored to the individual’s ability to pay as long as a cooperative attitude and willingness to pay exists. However, the debt shall be retired in one year or less. If determined that the responsible party has no intention of satisfying the account, it will be turned over to a collection agency as “bad debt” and removed from the billing records.
(H) Individuals who believe they are eligible for financial hardship can request an application for charitable consideration. The maximum amount to be credited to a qualifying patient’s account is 50%, not to exceed $15,000.
(Prior Code, § 11.04.030) (Ord. 01-21, passed 4-19-2001; Ord. 09-17, passed 11-19-2009; Ord. 15-15, passed 9-3-2015; Ord. 17-11, passed 6-15-2017; Ord. 23-18, passed 8-3-2023)