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Need advice on billing
I am in a small rural volunteer fire company. Our county has a levy and we get money from the community each year( not a lot). We have been approached by a company in Ky... ERS to do billing for vehicle accidents. They will bill vehicle insurance companies for us for vehicle accidents. We have a major discussion going... First, does anyone have a levy and would this be like double dipping? Second, has anyone else used this procedure and does it really work? Third, what other options are there if not billing? 90% of our calls we run are accidents. We are talking about billing only out of state vehicles but then is that discriminating? HELP and thanks ahead of time!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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Billing for motor vehical accidents is a normal practice. (only if there is an extrication or fluid spill) Fluid spills are deemed haz mat incidents. Make sure you get an incident number from the police department handling the scene. Rhode Island Fire Chiefs adopted a measure to help reimburse for expenses and also bill per apparatus per hour (depending on capability) (foam capability is worth more, etc.)
Check with your states procedures to ensure that they don't have a plan in place. Some departments only bill those outside of their own fire districts. This is great so long as you have a fire district in place and a fire tax is levied to all tax payers in the place you serve. If no such measure is in place, than the gloves are off and billing is soemthing that should occur. You bill these peoples insurance companies, and the insurance will pay the bills. Make sure you document everything for expenses, and all personnel and apparatus on scene. Anything above and beyond (unloading a overturned truck) you should be getting photos of and making sure you include a copy of these in the bills to the insurance companies.
If by chance the people you are billing (residents in personal vehicals) don't have insurance, you are in a catch 22 situation. You billing them is the least of their worries, so I wouldn't bother persuing the billing past a second notice. If they pay, they pay.
I think based on your storyline that you truely can't afford to hire a company to bill for you. Set up a established SOP on billing, a billing schedule, and start doing it yourself. It won't be long and you will catch the hang of it and you will be just fine. Do it yourself and save the money.
Hope this helps, if you need further info, please message me
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Permalink Reply by D.MAN on
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we use a biiling company.it is called coventant billing co. you can find it on the web.we are happy with them.hope this helps.
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