Billing for runs

Was wondering how many departments on here bill for runs with your engine not rescues beause we do not have one wether it is for vehicle accidents or fires?

How does it affect you tax exempt status?

How much do you bill and is the price the same wether you just direct traffic or have to fight fire?

The reason I am asking is with the local economy the way it is fund raising is starting to take a hit and it was suggested that maybe billing was the way to go and I thought I would ask for info on this site to see how to go about it.

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David LightPermalink Reply by David Light on April 7, 2009 at 4:19pm
It may seem illogical to you for a FD to recover their cost but most homeowner insurance policies have a clause for FD reimbursement. Where I live in rural USA the town is poor and the only help we get is from the state, fundraisers and grants. We bill the insurance and accept that. A few thousand dollars a year may not seem like much to you but it helps with the fuel bills. Why exist at all? We are a community with real live family and friends who need our help from time to time.
Permalink Reply by Alan Hanson on April 7, 2009 at 4:19pm
In my past department, we billed for everything except structure fires as we felt that was expected for your taxes. We used the prices set by the feds for wildland responses on the price for engines, personnel etc..
As long as you do not profit, your exempt status should not be in jepordy.
Permalink Reply by Chris on April 7, 2009 at 7:40pm
As we are a huge statewide, gov. funded fire service. (101 stations just in Sydney alone, we are 412th on the list statewide!) No billing is performed at station level, but NSWFB does bill for different things. We bill for false Automatic Fire Alarms (AFA), as these are an automatic 2 pumper response, unless they are caused by malfunction of the system. We also collect a fire levy from insurance companies, so structure fires and rescue are not billed. We have the power to collect all costs incured from a HAZMAT incident, and those costs come from the company / persons at fault. Our last hazmat was a 3 day job at a local factory which cost them $122,000AU!!!!!! As I said we at station level do not recover costs, it is all done at a higher level.
Permalink Reply by Chad Furr on April 7, 2009 at 10:50pm
We bill the same amount no matter what we do. However we only bill the ins. company not the indvidual. Whatever we recive from the ins company is all we get. NO ins no bill. Taxes cover it for you.
Permalink Reply by Jeff Wright on April 7, 2009 at 11:09pm
David
We are a city fire department, we do not bill for incident made on city taxpayers. We do bill for incident made on non-taxpayers. We have a city ordinance for fire, vehicle resuce, midagations, and ect. Are fees start at $500.00 and go up after the first hour. Now here is where it starts to be fun, if you bill a person and there insurance tell you " we are not paying" you can start though the small claims court way. Here is the problem, I or the Asst Chief have to take time off to go to court, loss money from the real job that pays your bills at home, you may get a judgement for your fees, but you may never collect them,if the person hasn't got anything, what areyou going to get. There are companys out here that are in the collection business, they work off a % of what they collect. I hope this give you some insight.
David LightPermalink Reply by David Light on April 8, 2009 at 4:41pm
Dear Jack,
Guess I did take you wrong. Sorry. Many FD's in my area are not in towns. They are in unincorporated communities within counties. Small populations but far enough apart, (average 8 to 10 miles) to justify the need. The state collects and divides a percentage of insurance premiums to all departments that qualify on a quarterly basis. That quarterly payment is based on premiums collected and is different every time. Sometimes larger departments don't realize or understand that a good all day fundraiser for us small guys is $250 profit. One MVA can make the same amount in just an hour and it's not only legal but encouraged by our state.

That is why I am in the billing business. Sure I make a % of the amount collected, but I'm also a firefighter, and I love the feeling I get when a VFD buys a new piece of life saving equipment with the money I collected for them. Many areas have levies, ordinance and or B&O taxes but many do not, and if allowed, billing may be one of the only viable options they have for improvement.

Billing planners must consider the state and local laws and politics, they must also understand their community and weigh the pros and cons. Guidelines that work for one would be a disaster for another. Guidelines range from not billing at all, to full collection, which includes credit reporting and small claims court. All my clients hit a happy medium and accept what the insurance pays, and the remaining balance is written off. I think that is a regional thing because I know of many variations around the country.

Catch ya later Jack,
Be safe

Dave
Permalink Reply by Dustin J. Millis on April 9, 2009 at 4:53am
We bill for all car accidents, water rescues, and structure fires. My dept is only certified for BLS non transport so there is obviously no billing for EMS, although that makes up 90% of are call volume. We have hired a private company that handles the billing for us. They take a very small percentage of each bill as pay.

The way it works (at least for us) is there is a flat fee for each truck that rolls from the station, regardless of how long its on scene, there is an addtional fee for every hour that the truck is on scene. There is one more fee for each ff that was on scene.

Now, that sounds like a whole lot of fees and it kinda is however; we never collect the full amount that is actually billed. Indiana law says that the victim is NOT responsible for anything the insurance company does not cover. So it basically boils down to we get whatever the victims insurance feels like paying. Which is usually pretty good. An average of 300-800 for car wrecks and a couple thousand for a good fire.

As far as bad PR goes... its not really an issue. Like I said the victim isnt actually paying us anything... just their insurance. We send the actual bill to the insurance company itself and send a statement to the victim explaining all the things we did on the scene, what equipment we used, and how many ff's were on scene. We tell them we are billing their insurance company for x amount. however we make it clear that the insurance company does not have to pay the full amount and you (the victim) yourself do not have to pay a penny.
Permalink Reply by Oldman on April 9, 2009 at 7:59am
We will bill insurance companies to recoup costs of large incidents, hazmat, and multiple false alarms specialty rescue situations. Having a major highway an rail in our district, we often have to open cars for extrication. If the tools come out, there is a bill. When you figure the cost of operation of each apparatus, tools and equipment, plus manpower, especially on extended operations, a department must recoup these costs. I've never seen a budget yet that has a large fire operation line item. Tax money only goes so far.
Permalink Reply by turk182 on April 9, 2009 at 10:03am
I want to thank everyone who has be repling to this post they have been very helpful.

We do not bill for runs but are checking our options. It is getting tougher with the way the economy is to raise money to support to pay the bills we are not by anymeans broke yet but do not want to get ourselves in that spot.

Our township only gives us a small amount of money yearly I thought it was around $2,000.00 a year, but the treasure told me it is less than that. So our main source of income is from fund raising and we are just looking into other ideas.
Permalink Reply by jeff beall on April 9, 2009 at 2:31pm
We billed for MVA's for 5 years using a thrid party billing service, and it went from a 60% return to less than 5% during that time. Being in the state of Virginia we have no Insurance Comissioner as most states do and were met with negative results when we approached the state trying to make the insurance co's step up and pay. We did how ever get $350 for a basic Engine response and the cost went up with the amount of extrication required, I believe the most we got was $1200 for a single car MVA with heavy entrapment.
Permalink Reply by BillySFCVFD on April 9, 2009 at 2:54pm
Jeff,

Here's where your Commissioner of Insurance has been hiding from you. http://www.scc.virginia.gov/division/boi/ TCSS
Permalink Reply by Jason McDonald on April 30, 2009 at 9:37am
My Govt. unit and volunteer unit do not charge. The governmetn is paif through taxes from the city of Pasig so they do not charge and the volunteer unit would never charge even if a false alarm or if they travel far. We have quite a bit 5 alarm fires or larger and will travel one or two hours to a fire but still still not charge. Its part of the job of volunteers to help the community and we ask the community for support.

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