An ambulance ride to the hospital will now cost you more money. KSAN's Lauren Lanmon spoke with the San Angelo fire department chief on what this means for the city.
"The rise in cost is drastic whether its ambulance basic life support or advanced life support. The price for transportation is now in many cases is more than double what the original dollar amount was." Here's a look at the previous ambulance rates. And here are the new rates. The cost for a non emergency b-l-s ride to the hospital is now increased by more than a hundred and seventy percent. The emergency a-l-s one is raised by one hundred and fifteen percent. And the emergency a-l-s two - raised by sixty six percent. "We've been way behind for years and what we did was look at all of the surrounding areas, Midland, Odessa, Ballanger, Sonora, Del Rio. Places that run county or are city run and came up with an average so we are bringing our rates up to that average and bring them to market rates." But some are concerned that those on a fixed income won't be able to handle this price jump. "But you're dealing with the elderly who are the ones that really need the services and if they can't pay once the ambulance comes, it does go into collections. But my main concern is if they call an ambulance two times and they owe a huge balance, you know it's just going to amount up to a lot of money that they can't pay." The fees will be used to help build a ConchoValley regional training center - as well as pay for emergency workers - or buy more ambulances. The estimated revenue that will be generated by this increase is around four hundred and eighty thousand dollars per year. "The council brought us up to market rates and the council probably put it good that we are billing to the lowest common denominator, so we are where our county cities are at this time." Lauren Lanmon KSAN San Angelo's news channel."
